AIC's 47th Annual Meeting

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum collections encompass vehicles, memorabilia, art, and archives documenting the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. During a preservation needs assessment conducted by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA), Museum staff pointed out tarnish and corrosion on the trophies in the memorabilia collection. This raised a number of questions, foremost being, “What should the museum do to slow down the deterioration of these metal objects?” The two institutions embarked on a collaborative research project aimed at answering this question. Existing literature supplied best practices, but the Museum wanted solutions specific to its needs and priorities. The Museum’s collections manager and CCAHA’s preventive conservation fellow worked together to investigate air quality on a modest budget and five-month timeline. Cost-effective and low-maintenance tools were trialed: A-D Strips, pH indicator strips, hydrogen sulfide indicator paper, colorimetric diffusion tubes, and metal foil coupons. One experiment using A-D Strips compared volatile acidity from the Museum’s three types of shelving units, it produced a qualitative visual result that prompted an immediate discussion about replacing the worst-performing shelves. This type of evidence-based testing can inform, educate, and initiate progress in collections care. Successful techniques can be adapted by a diverse range of collecting institutions that similarly do not have access to high-tech analytical equipment.