My life will be changing a lot this week and for that I am grateful.

In the mean time, I have been studying for my collections management class which was a very useful topic that provided me with much food for thought - integrated pest management for instance - not something that I think much about. But now I can tell the difference between a wood beetle and a carpet beetle and know for instance that those little piles of powder that come out of my unfinished wooden chest of drawers in my parents home in Riverside is very likely infested, and no the best solution would be to neither freeze the piece of furniture nor to subject it to a battery of pesticides. It has been beetle food for years and is probably structurally very weak at this point and ready for retirement. Insect frass and shells, all signs of infestation. Hair, skin and dirt all bug food. I now vacuum two to three times a week! But because we live in a house in Seattle where the temperature is hardly ever above 58 degrees, we don't really have to worry about silverfish or moths which thrive in high relative humidity. The practical applications of collections management...

Concerned about your old family fotos? Listen up, "archival" is way over-used in commercial products and a photo album that is pH balanced, and acid and lignan-free is what qualifies as truly archival. If you are like me and have your family fotos in old-style adhesive photo albums with plastic sheets sandwiching the fotos to the adhesive, that glue is going to migrate eventually through the photographs, causing damage and discoloration beyond repair. Move those fotos over pronto to acid-free linen.

And that artwork hanging up in my bathroom? The photographs and drawings both have a glaze layer (plexiglass or glass) which sits directly on top of the image, with no spacer. The emulsion of that color photograph is probably stuck at this point to the glass surface from the high humidity of the shower cycle.

NAGPRA: We need more policies like this one. I hope Geronimo's grandson wins his case with Yale and Skull & Bones.

Film stocks: nitrate, acetate, and polyester plastic bases, with nitrate and acetate being the most unstable. Esp. acetate with magnetic sound tracks which are subject to vinegar syndrome. Quarantine anything off-gassing a vinegar-like smell or the rest of your collection is wrecked.

I will never erase the image of stuffed lifeless birds with what appeared to be white cotton in place of eyes in the Burke mammalogy lab, by the drawerfuls, their legs crossed and bound; taxidermied gopher-like creatures, and the mounted heads of lions with fur loss on their ears from age and exposure. The whale skull suspended from the ceiling.