Technical Services Guide for Staff: Environmental Control

• Report an Issue
• Environmental Monitoring Reports
• Location of Monitors
• Ideal Environmental Ranges
• Known and Reported Building Issues

Due to Hawai'i's climate and costs, it's nearly impossible for us to achieve temperature and humidity recommendations from IPI and NEDCC (among others). So we aim to create a stable (as opposed to fluctuating) environment for our collections, ideally under 70 degrees with 30-50% relative humidity (sorry humans, I'm not thinking of you). If our temperatures are slightly higher than 70 degrees and not fluctuating widely, I would consider that to be within an acceptable range for us. In addition to our AC, our building envelope, namely our large, beautiful, glass wall, is undoubtedly the cause of many preservation woes we have in the building -- uv issues (even if there is a uv film on it, we can see the effect of light on the spines of our read collection), temperature, and RH issues. I've asked the preservation librarian at Hamilton about this, and she said that it would be best if we could add a curtain to the window, but we both agreed that it wouldn't be realistic, nor would we want it (unless SG volunteered some of her fab fabric and sewing skills). So there are inherent building features that we struggle with along with AC issues (I was told by the same librarian, that the AC is turned off at Hamilton at night - we are fortunate that we have ours going around the clock). 

We have a total of FIVE monitors in the library, four on the third floor and one on the second floor.

• Third Floor: 1) Main Collection Monitor; 2) Hawaiʻi Collection Monitor; 3) Archives Monitor; 4) Tech Services Monitor.
• Second Floor: 5) Circulation Desk Monitor.
• First Floor: None.