Bug traps

Bug trap, University of Brighton Design Archives, Sirpa Kutilainen

Today I have placed four bug traps within the Archives to see if anything will get caught. They are composed of cardboard with a sticky surface on the inside and a small pill supplied with them is placed inside to attract any bugs towards it. These traps have been purchased from a specialised conservation suppliers.

The placement of the traps was difficult to determine, as the Archives not only function as an archive but also as an office and research space. They needed to be placed somewhere where they do not get in the way of the everyday use of the space, but somewhere where there is a good chance something could get caught. Good places for these traps are dark corners where things do not get moved around too much. I thought about placing some traps along the rolling shelves where the collections are held, but will come back to this depending on how succesfull this first installment turns out to be.

The traps have been dated and will now be monitored. I am sincerely curious to see what happens, and to then try to identify the crawlies should we catch any.

2 comments

  1. Sirpa Kutilainen

    Due to a migration of this blog to a new layout, all comments made to posts have been lost in the process. Below are the comments, with name, date and time, made for this post.

    Dr M J Wilson 04 April 2011 1.23pm
    It probably should be no surprise that major archives have to think about the local insect population and the potential damage. Good to be alerted to these things along with all these behind-the-scenes insights into the exhibition and archival process.

    Sirpa Kutilainen 06 Apr 2011 9.17pm
    All museums and archives need to take pest control into consideration and this is usually included in disaster planning processes. I’d like to add that aside from a few spiders over the years, we have not experienced bug problems in the Design Archives – so I may well come out of my attempt at entomology empty-handed!

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