This past week we installed ten Preservation Environment Monitors (PEMs) purchased from the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) through the generous support of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Preservation Grant for Small and Medium Sized Institutions.  The devices will be used to monitor and assess the environmental conditions of collection storage spaces in use by Special Collections. The results will help us to make decisions about the distribution of materials and will allow us to better manage the long-term preservation of the collection for the benefit of our users well into the future.

Raw data collected from the PEMs can be uploaded to PEMdata, a web- based preservation management tool developed and maintained by IPI.  As noted on the organization’s website, the software can be used to organize temperature and humidity data, graph and interpret that data, and generate reports. Interior temperature, humidity, dewpoint, mold risk, and other parameters can be viewed in line graph form and compared to graphs of exterior conditions for the same period.

Algorithms developed by IPI use the data to determine the risk of various sorts of deterioration for a range of library materials that may result from the observed environmental condition through natural aging, mechanical damage, mold growth, and metal corrosion. These deterioration risks can be combined and displayed as a time-weighted preservation index or TWPI, a single number meant to represent the “approximate length of time, in years, that vulnerable organic materials would last if every time period in the future were just like the one during which the TWPI value was measured.” Calculators on the site allow one to make virtual changes in environmental conditions and view the effect on the TWPI.

The ten new monitors are added to one we have had for nearly a year. It has collected data in one of our open stacks locations in Special Collections.  A look at the data collected shows that the space being monitored offers less than ideal conditions for the storage of many types of materials, with a TWPI of 42 years. The risk of deterioration from natural aging is due to higher than recommended year-round temperatures and, to a lesser extent, elevated relative humidity levels during the summer months. Heightened temperature and humidity can accelerate the rate of decay of many materials, including film, photographs, magnetic tape, and books and papers produced from the mid-nineteenth century to the late-twentieth century. With this information in hand, one would ideally make changes to lower the temperature and summertime humidity levels. If this is not possible, the space could be used for storage of materials that are least likely to suffer from storage under moderately elevated temperature and relative humidity.

On the positive side, temperature was maintained in this space at a fairly consistent level and humidity levels did not reach the point at which mold growth could be supported, a constant worry in library collections housed in older buildings. Additionally, a comparison of the exterior and interior dewpoint temperatures shows that the building HVAC system functions in removing moisture from the air during the summer and adding it during the winter.

This type of data will eventually be available for all of our Special Collections storage spaces and will allow us to make informed decisions about the placement of materials and the improvement of our environmental systems.

We learned the happy news last week that we have been awarded a Save America’s Treasures grant from the National Park Services for the preservation and digitization of the papers of the Friendly Association. The papers are among our most heavily used collections, having been used by several published scholars, as well as Ph.D. candidates, Master’s degree thesis writers and undergraduate history majors from Haverford in recent years.

The “Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures” was established in 1756 by a group of eminent Quakers in Philadelphia following months of horrific violence between settlers and Native Americans on the Pennsylvania frontier. Self-consciously contrasting themselves with the British army, the militia, and the more militant representatives of the proprietary government, the leaders of the Friendly Association sought to establish peaceful relations with the Delaware Indians and other nearby tribes, and thereby prove the effectiveness of Quaker pacifism.

The Friendly Association was a private initiative, without the official sanction of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, but it quickly assumed a prominent role in many of the most important controversies of the day. Israel Pemberton and the other leaders of the Association sought to represent the interests of the Delaware in their ongoing dispute with the Pennsylvania government over the so-called “walking purchase.” They monitored and participated in a series of treaty negotiations in the late 1750s and early 1760s, and eventually their disputes with the proprietary government became one element in a broad Quaker campaign to establish royal government and rescind the colonial charter.

The Friendly Association papers contain hundreds of unique and detailed accounts of behind-the-scenes treaty negotiations; historical documents dating back to the early years of Pennsylvania related to Indian affairs; the correspondence of Pemberton and others relating to fund-raising and the exigencies of Pennsylvania politics; and missives from Indian leaders, transcribed or otherwise transmitted by an intricate network of Indian “go-betweens” who maintained almost constant contact with the Association.

Dating from 1745–1792, the papers were bound into five folio-sized, half-leather scrapbooks in the late 19th century. The documents suffer from embrittlement of their housing and support, iron gall ink corrosion and degradation of the documents themselves, and heavy use, greatly exacerbating the threat of continued damage from the preceding problems. Treatment will take place in our in-house conservation lab and will allow for removal of the documents from their embrittled scrapbook leaves and stabilization of the document inks and paper supports. Each document will also be scanned and the resulting digital images will be loaded into Triptych, our digital library system. The project will take two years to complete and will involve several staff members, preservation interns, and student assistants.