I am glad to see an issue such as this debated on Museum-L.  Many people can
be informed as to the pros and cons of particular instruments and their
relative complexities.

I am interested, however, in how insititutions utilize their hygrothermograph
charts.

I work in a huge institution where we have a full-time conservation
technician staff who monitor and calibrate our hygothermographs.  We have
been able to identify many chronic environmental problems and to use this as
evidence, sometimes linked with object damages, to convince the
powers-that-be that HVAC systems needed to be upgraded.   In one instance we
even were able to pinpoint a problem which our engineer-monitor systems had
missed which pointed to a faulty cellinoid control in a brand-new HAVC
system.  Even with our resources of monitoring staff and on-site engineers,
it can often take months and years to correct these chronic problems.

How do much smaller institutions with limited staff resources utilize this
information?  Who assesses it? Reports it? And takes remedial action? The
interpretation of these charts can require quite a wide range of knowledge
and subltety of interpretation.    Are the charts simply glanced at and filed
away?  If you do detect chronic problems how successful are you in correcting
it?

I guess that I am just curious if there is a disconnect between information
and action within many of the insitutions who utilize these instruments.

Dave

David Harvey
Conservator of Metals & Arms
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
P.O. Box 1776
Williamsburg, VA  23187-1776   USA
voice:     804-220-7039
e-mail:  [log in to unmask]