Hi David --
I will mostly second what others have said, that vacuum sealing has two
major detractions, notably potentially crushing fragile specimens and
also limiting access to the ecofacts for the purpose of documentation
and analysis. Although we recover a fair amount of faunal material here
at the Presidio of San Francisco, it is often in a state of poor
preservation and we have yet to come up with a fully suitable long-term
storage solution for it. (I'd say we're somewhere between recycled brown
bags typical of archaeology and a solution that would make conservators
breathe a sigh of relief!) That being said, I have two suggestions, or
rather further leads for you. The first is to try querying the folks on
NHCOLL-L (natural history collections listserv); they are likely to have
experience with and good advice regarding mounts and storage for
skeletal material, even if it's not archaeological in nature.
Secondly, and tangentially relevant to your situation because of the
concern about how readily you can access objects once you seal them in
bags, our partners here at the Park Service are in the middle of placing
some of their archaeological metals in anoxic storage. This consists of
"permanently" sealing the artifacts in nitrogen flushed bags containing
desiccant. They have had to figure out some creative strategies for
mounting large numbers of artifacts in ways that they can still be
readily observed through the sealed conservation packaging; and, perhaps
most importantly, everything has been cataloged prior to being subject
to these treatments, which is certainly an investment of time and labor.
But it may be interesting for you to chat with the Park archaeologist -
he's Leo_Barker[at]nps[dot]gov.
I'd be curious to hear what solution you come up with...
aloha
~Liz
Liz Clevenger, MA, RPA
Curator of Archaeology
The Presidio Trust
(415) 561-5086 office
(415) 561-5089 fax
lclevenger[at]presidiotrust[dot]gov
Presidio Archaeology Lab
(415) 561-ARCH
www.presidio.gov/history/archaeology
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of David K. Wade
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 2:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Vacuum Sealing
Hello All! I could use your assistance here....As an archaeology
repository, we
often receive recovered animal bone as part of an accession, in vast
quantities.
Often, these specimens are articulated and fragile. We are visiting
with
the idea
of vacuum packing some of these items and are coming up with a long
list
of
'pros', but very few 'cons'. Can anyone offer up some insight to us
what
we may
be overlooking? It would be most appreciated!
Thanks.
David K. Wade
Billings Curation Center
Billings, Montana
www.mt.blm.gov/bcc
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