Historical or Hysterical: Code and Standard Development

Bill Rose, a research architect at the University of Illinois, has done an amazing job of researching the history behind the development of codes and standards pertaining to moisture control in buidings. He has several articles published by ASHRAE and other organizations. I have been looking for a copy of "Development of Humidity Recommendations in Museums and Moisture Control in Buildings" for quite some time. I finally found the entire article at http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byauth/brownjp/humidity1997.html.

It is lengthy (36 pages) but fascinating. Rose and his coauthor, J.P. Brown, show how museum humidity standards were derived from guesses, anecdotal evidence, and, in some cases, complete disregard of scientific data.