Ongoing Preservation Maintenance Housekeeping should be routine. Some places tend never to be cleaned, such as surfaces of storage containers. All this dust filters into the air, so make sure cleaning is thorough. House your collections away from water pipes. Many collections are housed in a basement.
Water travels down, so avoid pipes.
Plan for the unexpected. In one repository, snow gathered on the plaza above the collection storage area and prevented adequate drainage during a heavy rain. The water leaked into a ventilation shaft, pooled in the canvas covering the ducts, and then burst over the collections. Be able to deal with this kind of emergency quickly. Never ever store collections on the floor for any period of time.