Dataloggers available

Massachusetts Library Environmental Monitoring Program
Dataloggers made available through the Massachusetts Board of
    Library Commissioners

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners is happy to
announce an environmental monitoring program for multi-type
libraries in Massachusetts beginning in early 1996.  With the help
of L.S.C.A. Title III funds, the MBLC will purchase forty digital
dataloggers to take temperature and relative humidity readings over
a six-month period in a limited number of libraries at a time.  The
plan is to install one to three dataloggers in each participating
library, depending on its size, for a six month period to record
changing environmental conditions through at least one seasonal
change when most HVAC systems have particular difficulty maintaining
proper environmental conditions.  This time frame will also permit
the libraries to see graphically the effects the outside environment
has on that inside the library and how far the library's environment
fluctuates from recommended preservation levels.

At the beginning of this six-month period, the Collection
Management/ Preservation Specialist will take a number of
environmental readings (temperature, relative humidity, light, and
ultraviolet radiation) and make general recommendations to the
libraries on how to ameliorate their environmental conditions for
the optimum long-term preservation and storage of their holdings.
The dataloggers will then be installed in the library. A similar set
of readings will be taken at the end of the six months to measure
any progress in addressing these problems. The dataloggers will then
be retrieved from the libraries, the data downloaded into a
computer, and graphs and tables generated.  Each library will
receive a copy of the graphs and tables from its datalogger(s) with
an analysis of the findings, including recommendations for
improvement of the environment based on the data.  The dataloggers
will then be available for installation into another set of
libraries.

Libraries interested in participating in this program should contact

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall at the MBLC at (617) 267-9400, (800)
952-7403, or at gtrinkaus [at] mecn__mass__edu for further information.
These libraries would then receive dataloggers in one of the first
six-month periods.

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:37
                Distributed: Thursday, October 26, 1995
                        Message Id: cdl-9-37-015
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