Monitoring the conditions of our collections and historic architecture is no easy task. Last summer, The House of the Seven Gables was fortunate to form two partnerships to help us record temperatures, humidity, and light levels in the areas of our museum campus where we display collections.
The first partnership was with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. We applied to be one of the sites in the state to participate in their bi-annual monitoring project. Monitoring began in July 2016 when we placed small dataloggers around the site. In March 2017 we received valuable information from the monitoring. We will use this data to apply for future collections funding by demonstrating the fluctuations in environmental conditions.
Honeywell offered us a second partnership. What started off as a joint marketing partnership has turned into a product donation of 30 relative humidity and temperature monitors that are being used in around our site for a monthly monitoring.
We’re appreciative of both of these opportunities to continue to increase the care for our collections.