Tip #11: No matter how temporary, never store items on the ground.

Written By Dmitri Schmidt

Flooding. Leaks in the roof. That intern that forgot to rescrew the lid to their bottle tight enough. Malfunctions in the sprinkler system. If it wasn’t enough to worry about keeping the relative humidity of your collection below 70% under typical circumstances, what are you supposed to do if there’s 100% standing water in your collection?

When it’s safe for you to enter the building and access your collection again, your exact approach will depend on the extent of the damage which in turn will depend on the materials in your collection. Plastic miniatures stored on a metal shelving unit, for example, will experience a much different kind of damage than say parchment stored on a wooden bookcase.

To cover how water affects every type of material would take another 11 tips and even then you might still require professional assistance, so instead we’re (once again) promoting preparation. Monitor the environment regularly, both with the help of technology and your own two eyes. Make an emergency preparedness plan (more  on this later). And of course, always, always, always, store items at least half a foot off the ground.

Want to learn more about mitigating damage in your collection? Check out our webinar on YouTube!

Dmitri Schmidt

Dmitri plays a pivotal role in coordinating Backlog’s outreach efforts. They curate our weekly #FridayFinds and #ArchivalTips social media posts, shedding light on items discovered in our genealogy work and providing tips and tricks to approaching problems in the archives.

Dmitri holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and German Studies from Saint Louis University. During their university years, they dedicated over 1000 hours to interning and volunteering at local St. Louis institutions, including the St. Louis Science Center and the St. Louis University Museum of Art. As the Collections Intern at the Science Center, Dmitri assisted in developing and installing the "Into the Vault" exhibit.

Before joining Backlog, Dmitri served as a Fulbright Grantee, teaching English as a second language in former East Germany. From guiding 11th graders in analyzing pop albums as poetry to discussing the significance of the civil rights movement with 8th graders, they covered a broad spectrum of subjects. While reveling in connecting with students and injecting fun into grammar lessons, Dmitri's deep passion for all things archival eventually drew them back home.

Today, Dmitri works as a Herbarium Assistant at the Missouri Botanical Garden, helping digitize the millions of preserved plant specimens. After being scanned and transcribed, these images aid scholars around the globe in furthering botanical research. Dmitri also serves as the archivist for the Kirkwood Historical Society. They are currently overseeing the “Journeys into Kirkwood’s History” project, which aims to digitize documents related to Kirkwood’s early Black settlements.

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