Environmental pests are one of the most important risk factors in museums, museum buildings, archives and libraries around the world. Although these pests do not have a wide range, if they are present in the environment, the amount of damage they cause to material heritage will be very significant. Prevention and control of these pests is one of the tasks of the Comprehensive Pest Management Program, which has replaced traditional pest control methods in museums. This is an emerging, multifaceted and holistic strategic program in the field of preventive conservation that provides the conservator with a variety of treatment methods and considers the use of pesticides only as a last resort. Given the importance of being aware of the strategies of this program, this article provides a brief overview of all treatment strategies. Since the type of pest and the type of museum artifact are very important in determining the treatment method, a more detailed classification of their types is provided, including separation based on the degree of impact on the type of pest (insects and microorganisms) and applicability with respect to the materials used and the technique of making the artifacts.
Insects are the most important class of the animal kingdom in terms of the number of species and include 2/3 of the known species. In addition to the abundance of species, they also rank first among animal groups in terms of the level of distribution and reproductive power of species. Living in different climatic and geographical conditions is a normal and almost universal thing for insects due to their small size and very diverse adaptations. The high reproductive power and wide distribution level and the possibility of various adaptations of the morphometric, physiological and biological type have made these animals one of the resistant and invincible vital factors in nature. Meanwhile, historical-cultural collections, given their special conditions, are no exception to this rule and require specialized studies in this field. In the initial and field studies of the library of the Niavaran Archaeological-Cultural Collection, severe insect pests were observed, so that the carpets of the collection were damaged due to the attack of insect pests. Therefore, in the first step, the pests of the collection were examined and identified, and then the damaged parts were disinfected. In this article, the various steps from diagnosis and identification to disinfection will be presented.
