Preserving Invaluable Museum Research & Collections

Multi-layered LN2 and temperature monitoring helps a major museum protect irreplaceable scientific collections.

Just as important as everything a museum collects and studies is the way those assets are preserved. From cultural artifacts and biological specimens to works of art, even small swings in temperature and humidity can alter delicate materials and cause irreplaceable objects to deteriorate — often before anyone notices.

The challenge: catching problems as they happen, not weeks later

Tim White, the director of collections and research at one of the oldest and largest natural history museums in the country, wanted to modernize the way his team monitored temperature and humidity across the museum's collections.

“In the museum world, we've looked at a lot of hardware and standalone solutions for data logging. I've had a person go around once a month and download information from data loggers, but this made it difficult to catch issues as they were occurring.”

A once-a-month walk-around is fine for a paper trail. It is not fine for protecting collections that can be damaged in hours. White needed a system that would catch problems in real time, in any space across the museum — not weeks after the fact.

The solution: CORIS, expanded one use case at a time

After hearing about CORIS from a colleague, White first put the system to work where the stakes were highest: LN2 tanks and ultra-low-temperature freezers holding scientific specimens. With that program running smoothly, the team expanded CORIS into broader environmental monitoring across the museum — including during an extensive renovation project where collections and staff faced new variables every week.

• LN2 tank monitoring with real-time alerts on low-nitrogen and temperature excursions
• ULT freezer monitoring for irreplaceable specimens
• Temperature and humidity monitoring across gallery, lab, and storage environments
• Continuous environmental visibility during a major museum renovation project
• A single platform replacing manual monthly data-logger downloads

The result: real-time visibility across irreplaceable collections

With CORIS in place, the museum moved from reactive, after-the-fact monitoring to true real-time visibility. Issues that used to surface a month later — if at all — now generate alerts the moment conditions move out of range, so staff can intervene before any artifact, specimen, or work of art is at risk.

For a museum entrusted with collections that can never be replaced, that shift from monthly check-ins to continuous awareness isn't just a nice-to-have. It's a fundamental change in the standard of care.