Hello all,

Thanks to Ashely, Rachael, and Eli for their posts with additional excellent resources about pest management treatments.  My recent post about freezing was overly simplified and left out some key info that could be misinterpreted or misused in a different scenario.

To clarify, the interior temperature of an object must reach and maintain a temperature of -20 degrees F for a sustained period.  The time period depends on the species and life-cycle stage, in addition to how soon the object reaches that temperature and stays there.  It is better to be safe than sorry, so don't hurry to take objects out of freezers.  Museumpests.net and CCI are wonderful sources for more information and technical details about pest treatment and prevention.

And as other posters mentioned, anoxia and low-temperature treatments just stop the current infestation and do not prevent subsequent infestations.  However, they are also safer for people by avoiding pesticide chemicals.  Tom Parker chimed in to suggest that you can store the object in a clear zipped bag after treatment (and after recording all the details of treatment) to prevent future pest attacks, and it keeps dust off as an added bonus. 

Every situation will need to be evaluated individually and be based on the object and your museum situation.  This is why conservators are so hesitant to give easy answers--there aren't any!  And we'd hate to have our comments end up causing more damage.

Hope this helps,

Victoria Book
Chief Conservator
Gilcrease Museum
918.596.2714
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From: Museum discussion list [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Timothy McGrew [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2011 10:18 AM
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Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Fur Infestation

Hi all,

Museumpests.net<http://museumpests.net/> is a great site - the specific link for Low Temp treatment (freezing) is below

http://www.museumpests.net/treatment.asp?defaulttab=1

While it is a very simple process and over time it has proven even safer that once thought, it is still good to check out specifics.
I know for example that the period of time that materials should be "frozen" (if you are putting them in the freezer they shouldn't actually have a high enough moisture content to actually freeze!) is related to the temperature of the freezer and that can vary widely.

In the CCI document at this link

 http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/publications/ccinotes/pdf-documents/n3-3_e.pdf

there is an insect mortality chart to make it easy to calculate how long you should leave your stuff in the freezer. The last thing you want to do is to put your collections at risk just to save a little freezer time!

Ashley

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