Preventative Conservation: Integrated Pest Management

Usually when people think about conservation, they think about the physical treatment performed on an object to minimize degradation. To conservators, this is called interventive conservation. In reality the first step for a conservator when dealing with a collection of objects that are degrading is practicing what is known as preventative conservation. This aspect of conservation is the act of preventing degradation through damage incurred via their handling, use, transport, storage and display. The ten common agents of deterioration, as described in my Museum Collections Management module last year, include:

• Incorrect temperature
• Incorrect relative humidity
• Fire
• Water
• Pests
• Pollutants
• Light (including UV and radiation)
• Physical forces
• Thieves and vandals
• and Disassociation.

The agent we are going to focus on is pests. They are one thing that every person has had to deal with in everyday life that is also a major threat to the survival of collections. These little guys have been known to eat their way through a collection in a very short time. So the best fight against a pest infestation is to stop it while it is still small and prevent it from spreading by using a technique called integrated pest management (IPM). This is a system of monitoring the types of pests that are in the collection and use knowledge about those pests to both prevent infestations and to monitor the climate (which is another agent of deterioration). 

The first step for IPM is to set your pest and insect traps.

 

The different types of traps used at BMAG include the three pictured above, starting from the left to the right: mouse house trap, blunder traps, and moth pheromone traps. The traps of real interest are the blunder traps, which use the concept of a sticky pad, and the moth pheromone traps, that use moth pheromones in conjunction with the sticky tape, to trap the different pests that frequent that room. Placing these traps in the correct locations can give you a leg up in preventing infestation or other harm to the collections. The blunder traps should be placed in the at least two corners of the room right up against the wall, because insects will generally stay close to the wall and perimeter of the room when travelling. The moth pheromone traps take the blunder trap a step farther, by targeting male moths. These traps should be placed around clothing or textile collections and don’t necessarily need to be placed up against the wall, as the moths will follow their scent wherever they are placed, within a 10 meter radius. 

After the traps are set up in their proper location, they should be monitored on a regular basis, every few weeks or once a month just to keep eye on the types of pests that are caught. The best way to keep track of where the traps are placed is to mark a floor plan. This floor plan uses numbers that correlate to the the trap.

This type of monitoring system makes it easy to travel around to the different locations and check the traps for bugs.

Here is an example of a trap that has collected a variety of insects, Now, in order for this system to work, it is necessary to keep a log of the different types of bugs that are found on the  different traps. That is why numbering is a good idea. This will be enable the problem to be narrowed down and located to the source. A general rule of thumb is if there is more than 5 bugs of the same species on one trap, information on the insect should be gathered to identify the problem. Different types of bugs will indicate different things. Some larvae eat the collections, where the adults are not harmful to the collection, like carpet beetles. The larvae eat fur, wool, feathers, etc. So if you catch larvae, or even if you catch only adult, you know they are in the collection and interventive treatments can be performed. Some insects are not a pest insect, but they can be an indication of high humidity, or high temperature. One such insect is silverfish. As anyone who has a problem with them in their bathroom can attest, these little bugs like high humidity. If there are a lot in the collection, you might have a problem with humidity.

As you can tell, using IPM can save a collection. One website that is a very good tool to use when trying to find out how to get started with IPM or even to identify an insect you have never seen before is http://www.whatseatingyourcollection.com/. This has everything you need to get started on saving your collection. So check it out!