[SOA] Humidity Problems in the Archives: Looking for Input

[William McIntire]

We are having some issues with our humidity levels in the archives and we are trying to find out if it is caused by the dry condition of the collection or if it’s the HVAC system.

Last August we moved our collections into the new Main Library building we just built. The new archives room is about 3900 SF in size and has a new climate control system. For about 2.5 years while the library was under construction we housed the material offsite in “less-than-optimal” conditions. The problem we are having is that that the humidity in the new space is nearly always too low and tends to fluctuate greatly when the temp/humidity changes outside. Also the equipment is not raising humidity consistently throughout the room. For instance, when it is super cold out one sensor ranges around 25 – 35% and the other on the opposite end of the room ranges from 15 – 25%.  However, today, when it is much warmer outside and the outdoor humidity is high, they are reading 49% and 59% respectively (the 59% is the one that is usually lower than the other). The archive is on the second floor (of three) but is in an exposed with wing under the old roof (nothing above it).

The low humidity is better than high but with the new equipment we shouldn’t (ideally) be having these problems at all---especially the fluctuations. We were wondering if this is a result of how we stored the material while the library was under construction.  We have a lot of paper, including a couple thousand volumes of bound newspapers. We were thinking that maybe the stuff got too dry and now it is now sucking up all the moisture it can get and that’s why we get consistently low humidity except on especially warm and damp days. We’re not sure if that makes sense or if it’s just a crazy theory and the HVAC is the real culprit.

The questions are; does storing items in a dry environment over time cause them to become “thirsty” and thus affect humidity, keeping it low? And if so, how long it should take, generally, for materials that have not been kept in optimal conditions to “absorb” the new levels of humidity so things become stable?

Thank you all so much, any input you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Bill


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BILL MCINTIRE, MA, MLIS

Information Services Librarian - Archives

DaytonMetroLibrary.org<http://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/>

P: 937.496.8681

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