Bonnie-Dara: Why not freeze or fumigate the objects concerned, thus eliminating your concerns about contaminating the rest of your collection. As a point of interest, do you not have an established procedure concerning the introduction of new material into your collection storage area? It is so very easy for one to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude when one is not intimately involved with the situation so I am certainly interested in hearing more details either directly or through emails with other listers as I am sure it is a more complex issue than one might suspect. Good Luck! Patricia Davis-Perkins Gestionnaire de projet - Numérisation des collections/Project Manager - Collections Digitization Bibliothèque, archives et services de documentation/Library, Archives and Documentation services Musée canadien des civilisations/Canadian Museum of Civilization Tél : (819) 776-8456 mailto:[log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Bonni-Dara Michaels [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: February 20, 2003 8:58 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: query - possible contamination of storage environment We were recently given a gift of over 350 objects, mostly silver, that had been stored in an unglazed cabinet in a New York City apartment and had not been cleaned, polished or dusted in approximately 20 years. They are covered with dust and dirt. The wrapped items were placed in cabinets in our storage area pending disposition. The storage area is part of a multi-floored museum storage facility with shared environment and environmental controls including filtration. My Director now wants me to unwrap all these items in the storage area, and replace them in the cabinets so that a researcher can work on them at her leisure in the storage area over the next month. I am concerned about contaminating the storage environment, not merely in our area but throughout the building - is this a legitimate concern? Can anyone point me to a printed source, or a previous on-line discussion of this issue, that I can use to back my protest? Even statements from colleagues saying they wouldn't do this would help. Thanks in advance for your help. Bonni-Dara Michaels Collections Curator Yeshiva University Museum 15 West 16th Street New York, New York 10011 Tel: 212-294-8330 x 8815 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).