04 · The artifact
Condition and pest damage
Which sheets are being eaten, moulded, or falling off their mounts?
- Status
- Specified, unbuilt
- Field
- Empty — nobody is doing this
- Who wants it
- Collections care. Has a budget, unlike most research users.
Why it matters
Unglamorous and fundable. Pest outbreaks in a herbarium are a budget line and an insurance question, and collections monitor them by walking the aisles.
What it needs
Damage exemplars from a conservator. Nothing exotic.
State of the art
Almost none. Conservation science has not met collection-scale vision.
Next head
Mercuric chloride residue →