Development of Best Practices in Integrated Pest Management

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Development of Best Practices in Integrated Pest
Management

• Christopher A. Norris
• Lisa Kronthal Elkin

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Why Best Practices For IPM?

• IPM was identified as a need by around 75 of
  respondents to Heritage Health Index survey, 2005

Heritage Preservation IMLS, 2005
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The IPM Working Group

• An ad hoc group of museum professionals
  dedicated to the development of pest management
  resources for the general museum community

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Then (2000)
American Museum of Natural History
Canadian Conservation Institute
National Museum of the American Indian
Texas Tech University
Zak Software
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Now (2008)..
American Museum of Natural History Lower East Side Tenement Museum Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Natural History Museum, London
National Museum of the American Indian Historic New England National Museum of Natural History Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale
Canadian Museum of Nature Smithsonian Museum Support Center U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center Peabody Museum of Archaeology Ethnology
Milwaukee Public Museum Canadian Conservation Institute Swedish Museum of Natural History Artex Fine Art Services, Inc.
New York Historical Society Denver Museum of Nature and Science Baltimore Museum of Art Applebaum Himmelstein
Insects Limited, Inc. Harvard University Herbaria Steritech, Inc. Yale University Science Libraries
Upstate History Alliance Zak Software Etc

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Resources

• MuseumPests.net
• PestList
• Wiki site
• Annual Meeting

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Five Thematic Areas

• Data Collection
• Identification Aids
• Treatments
• Web Resources
• Standards Best Practices

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Standards Best Practices Subgroup

• Three main areas
• Policies
• Procedures
• Tools
• Activities
• Gather available resources from community
• Vet resources and make available via web
• Develop template documents for policies and
  procedures

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What do we mean by Standards Best Practices?

• Standard A generally accepted level of
  attainment for use as a basis of comparison in
  measuring or judging performance1 a
  codification of technology or procedure
  developed, tested, peer-reviewed, and published
  by a professional society or governmental agency
  to be adhered to by members and subscribers
  generally must be followed closely in attention
  to its prescribed detail2
• 1 Merritt, E. 2005. Standards of Stewardship
  presentation at the annual meeting of The
  Association of College and University Museums and
  Galleries, Bloomington, Indiana, April 30, 2005.
• 2 Hathaway, A.W., 1992. Standards, guidelines,
  and protocols Keeping our house in order. AEG
  News, 35(1) 26-28. Cited in Cato et al. (2003),
  MuseumWise Workplace Words Defined.
• Best Practices a technique or methodology that,
  through experience and research, has proven to
  reliably lead to a desired result1 generally
  agreed upon but not legislated2. Commendable
  actions and philosophies that successfully solve
  problems, can be replicated, and demonstrate an
  awareness of standards3.
• 1 SearchSoftwareQuality.com/definitions
• 2 Cato et al. (2003), MuseumWise Workplace
  Words Defined.
• 3 Merritt, E. 2005. Standards of Stewardship
  presentation at the annual meeting of The
  Association of College and University Museums and
  Galleries, Bloomington, Indiana, April 30, 2005.

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Defining the Audience

• Who are the major players in setting procedures
  and policy within institutions?
• Administration
• Building Management
• Security Safety
• Vendors (including food services, events, etc.)
• Research/Collections
• Exhibition Education
• Human Resources

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How do we influence these institutional
supergroups to deliver effective IPM?

• Define the role of each group in IPM
• Find an incentive, or incentives
• Speak to their needs
• Develop a tool to address this process
• ? The Grid

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The Grid is not a best practices document

• But it does lay out the framework of
  consultation that is necessary to implement an
  IPM strategy
• And it provided the groundwork for the
  Subgroups development of best practices documents

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To download the Grid.

• http//www.museumpests.net/tools/FINAL-SBPgrid.pd
  f

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Review

• Pulled together a set of 46 institutional IPM
  documents
• 28 policy documents
• Also training resources, procedures, etc.
• Reviewed by Subgroup for
• Content
• General applicability
• 10 policy documents passed by the group
• Sought institutional permission
• Posted on website

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To download sample policies

• http//www.museumpests.net/resources/sampledocs.ht
  ml

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Minimum Requirements for an IPM Policy

• Introduction
• Objective/Scope
• Justification
• Applicability
• Overall responsibility
• Other roles and responsibilities
• Training
• Support/Budget
• Best Practices
• Monitoring
• Remedial Action
• Documentation
• Review/Revision

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Policy Template

• Uses the minimum requirements
• Provides guidance notes under each heading
• Notes were based on Grids recommendations for
  framing and targeting content

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Minimum Requirements for IPM Procedures

• Introduction
• Applicability
• Roles and responsibilities
• Procedure-Specific Information
• Monitoring
• Documentation
• Review/Revision

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Seven Procedure Templates

• Who is the IPM plan directed at?
• Control of Access
• Control of Environment
• Housekeeping/Removal of Shelter
• Control of Food/Live Plants/Catering
• Monitoring/Data Analysis
• Treatment

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To Download Templates

• http//www.museumpests.net/tools/templates.htm

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The membership of IPM-WG is broad

• IPM-WG draws from the experiences and expertise
  of a wide range of individuals and institutions.
• This breadth of input is vital when determining
  best practices
• In the longer term, its also essential for the
  development of effective standards

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This has been a community-led and supported,
grass roots process

• IPM-WG is not affiliated with any particular
  institution or society
• Although AMNH has hosted all the meetings to
  date, individuals and their institutions meet the
  costs of attending
• We receive a small amount of sponsorship and our
  website is hosted by one of the participants, Zak
  Software

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IPM-WG is an open group..

• A general invitation to the meeting is sent out
  via listservers anyone from the community who
  wants to attend can do so
• The work processes are transparent all
  documents are posted for comment and review on
  the Wiki site.

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Our goals are practical

• Throughout the process, our goals have been
  practical to develop tools and resources that
  can be downloaded and used by any institution

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IPM-WG may act as a model

• IPM-WG provides an example of how standards and
  best practices can be framed in a community-led
  process that goes across traditional
  institutional and disciplinary boundaries
• The development of The Grid as a first stage
  enabled us to frame documents that would speak
  directly to the major institutional players in
  any IPM plan. We think this approach is widely
  applicable to standards and other policy
  development

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Standards or Best Practices?
Standard A generally accepted level of
attainment for use as a basis of comparison in
measuring or judging performance a codification
of technology or procedure developed, tested,
peer-reviewed, and published by a professional
society or governmental agency to be adhered to
by members and subscribers generally must be
followed closely in attention to its prescribed
detail Best Practices a technique or
methodology that, through experience and
research, has proven to reliably lead to a
desired result1 generally agreed upon but not
legislated. Commendable actions and philosophies
that successfully solve problems, can be
replicated, and demonstrate an awareness of
standards.
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Want to know more?

• To join IPM-WG
• Rachael Arenstein rachaelarenstein_at_hotmail.com
• To learn more about the SBP subgroup
• Derya Golpinar dgolpinar_at_tenement.org
• To join the Pest list
• http//www.museumpests.net/listsignup.asp
• To download this presentation and all other
  documents mentioned
• http//www.museumpests.net/

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Acknowledgements

• Rachael Arenstein, Neil Duncan, Richard Monk
• All members of IPM-WG and especially SBP
  Subgroup Members Barbara Brown, Derya Golpinar,
  T. Rose Holdcraft, Emily Kaplan, Jeremy Jacobs,
  Gail Joice, Linda Klise, Judith Levinson, Suzanne
  Ryder, Mike Schwetz, Laura Smyk, Gwen Spicer, Tom
  Strang, Amber Tarnowski, Paul Wilkinson
• Insects Limited, Steritech, and Zak Software for
  support of the group and the annual meetings
• AMNH Division of Vertebrate Zoology for hosting
  the meetings
• Alex Wild, University of Arizona, for permission
  to use insect images (myrmecos.net)

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The End