The Bob Campbell Geology Museum at Clemson University has been destroyed twice during Adam Smith’s time as director. “I should go work for FEMA now or something,” Smith said. “I’m well versed in emergency management.”
The first time occured in January 2018 during a severe cold snap. Some of the sprinkler pipes in the museum’s attic froze and broke. The system sensed a drop in pressure, which normally is a sign of a fire, and shunted water into the pipes. Water gushed out of the broken pipe and pooled on the attic floor. Eventually the sheetrock gave out, and the museum’s ceiling came crashing down.
The second time, last December, was even worse. Extreme cold temperatures caused the pipes to freeze and break again. A larger portion of the ceiling collapsed.
Nine months later, Clemson’s museum is almost fully repaired. But some specimens are forever lost or ruined: a 68-million-year-old triceratops tooth, a mounted dolphin skeleton, remains of an extinct arthropod called a trilobite.
Smith still worries about future damage. “I don’t know that there’s anything I personally could have done to prevent these things. But do I get nervous when I see the temperature’s going down now? Absolutely,” Smith said. “This museum is my baby, so I worry about this place all the time.”
College librarians, archivists, and museum curators are used to warding off threats to their collections. But their job is becoming more difficult as certain kinds of severe weather events and natural disasters become more extreme and more common — largely due to the downstream effects of the warming climate. What’s more, institutions in places like South Carolina must now prepare for conditions they aren’t used to facing, such as bouts of below-freezing temperatures.
Those challenges inspired a new project from Louisiana State University. Its goal is to create a rating scale of the climate risks facing each gallery, library, archive, and museum in the country, presented via an interactive virtual map.
This month, the research team published phase one of their project: a map of nearly 74,000 institutions, including about 6,800 that are affiliated with colleges. This effort marks the first database to contain all of these institutions in one place, experts say, and opens the door to new kinds of research questions, such as regional disparities in museum and library access.
Next, the team will calculate a climate-risk score for each institution, based on past disasters, average temperature, rainfall, and humidity, and projections for the future. Researchers want to make sure their colleagues know what they’re up against and how to prepare.
“That’s absolutely key,” said Cory Rogge, who serves as vice president on the Board of Directors at the American Institute for Conservation and is director of conservation at the Menil Collection, in Houston, Texas. “Because if you don’t have the knowledge of what to plan for, you can’t plan for it effectively.”
Only half of cultural-heritage institutions reported having an emergency plan in the 2014 Heritage Health Information Survey, the most recent federal data available. And a quarter reported having the resources and staff necessary to carry out such a plan.
Reducing Risks
Without proper preparation, disaster response can devolve into “a reactionary situation,” said Jill C. Trepanier, an associate professor of geography at LSU and one of the leaders of the project. Reacting instead of planning ahead “leads to higher costs, leads to bigger losses,” Trepanier said. “You have things you’re purposefully trying to protect for the long haul.”
Unless we respond proactively and help safeguard our materials, we’re going to lose them. And that’s losing bits of us.
The data points and language in the forthcoming climate-risk map are intended to be used in grant applications — helping librarians, curators, and others articulate the urgent need for funding to support disaster-prep efforts. Colleges can also use the climate-risk scores to decide on upgrades and develop the right emergency plans.
“I really think what they’re doing can be useful for institutions who aren’t looking at this in a very direct way,” said Ben Goldman, university archivist for the Pennsylvania State University Libraries and a member of the project’s advisory board. “They could get a better sense of what their potential risks are and hopefully start thinking about how to mitigate them or plan for the future.”
Some of the risks are region specific. Libraries in Nebraska don’t need to worry about rising sea levels in the same way those in Miami do. But others, such as humidity and temperature, are universal. “Big fluctuations in either are really bad,” said Edward Benoit III, an associate professor and associate director of LSU’s School of Information Studies, who’s leading the project with Trepanier.
In a hot and dry environment, paper cracks and shrinks; in a wet and humid environment, paper expands and mold grows. “Paper is trying to eat itself constantly,” Benoit said. “And what archivists and librarians are trying to do is slow that process down as much as possible. But everything will disintegrate at some point.”
The first line of defense against humidity and temperature is proper climate control, he said. It’s important to have functioning HVAC systems, as well as a backup generator or other power source, if the power goes out during a storm or the electrical grid is overrun during a heatwave, he added.
The location of the generator matters, too. “There are many buildings I see where the generator is sitting right next to the building. So if you’re getting flooded, and the generator’s right there and goes underwater, it’s not going to be useful,” Benoit said.
Storage is another factor to consider. Important materials should never be stored in the basement, ground floor, or top floor if it can be avoided, Benoit said. Items on the top floor are exposed if the roof is damaged, and items on the ground floor and in the basement are most vulnerable to flooding.
Looking Forward
Many colleges have learned these lessons the hard way.
After the first flood at Clemson’s geology museum, in 2018, the space was a mess of water and debris. Clumps of pink insulation clung to the bones of dinosaur skeletons on display. Luckily, most of the damaged images were replaceable, such as display materials and plaster casts of dinosaur bones.
Clemson added extra safeguards, such as additional heating and thermometers in the attic so Smith, the director, could keep an eye on the conditions. “I was told, ‘You know, we’ve done a, b, and c. This shouldn’t ever happen again,’” said Smith. “And then it happened again.”
The same freeze in 2022 that damaged the Clemson museum a second time also flooded Florida State University’s main library. On Christmas night, an air-handler coil froze, and a pipe broke. Tens of thousands of gallons of water flooded the basement and seeped through the floor into the sub-basement, which contained 91,000 volumes and the library’s archival materials.
Staff members hauled the wet boxes up the stairs while water rushed down them, said Gale Etschmaier, dean of university libraries at Florida State.
The most valuable materials should not be put in vulnerable spaces.
“Because of the heroic efforts of the staff members, our archives were saved,” she said. During the repairs, the university also made plans for improvements, such as replacing the HVAC systems, installing more sensors, and developing a better strategy for archive storage.
A key takeaway? Irreplaceable documents don’t belong in the basement. “The most valuable materials should not be put in vulnerable spaces,” Etschmaier said.
Now that LSU’s database of galleries, museums, libraries, and archives is complete, the team will continue to refine the map and develop the climate-risk scores. The researchers hope to publish the climate-risk map in 2024. Ultimately, they plan to host a national gathering to get feedback from leaders in the climate change and cultural heritage fields, and develop a collaborative research agenda.
“We are stewards of the best parts of humanity,” said Rogge, of the American Institute for Conservation. “Every single nation out there, every single location, is facing this, and unless we respond proactively and help safeguard our materials, we’re going to lose them. And that’s losing bits of us.”
