There are few topics likely to induce an eyes-glazed-over response more quickly than the words ‘environmental standards’ for heritage collections. I am pleased to report that the just published ‘Specification for environmental conditions for cultural collections (BSI: PAS: 198)’ marks a significant departure from the usual, and is well worth a read.
The National Archives has taken a lead in developing a new environmental standard for the cultural sector, in part-response to a statement issued by the UK National Museum Directors’ Conference that, ‘museums need to approach long-term collection care in a way that does not require excessive use of energy, while recognising the duty of care to collections.’ There was general agreement that it is time to utilise the research undertaken in the last ten years, and to shift policies for environmental control, loan conditions and guidance given to architects and engineers from the prescriptive advice to something based on the sensitivity of the objects, the expected life of the collection, and local priorities. This isn’t about relaxing environmental standards, its about making informed decisions for a collection.
ment manages many aspects of The National Archives’ on site museum including the display cases. It’s not as simple as just setting up the document, locking the case, walking away and forgetting about it for a few months. We spend a good amount of time behind the scenes maintaining our cases. For some display cases, this means we have to do regular maintenance work on machines that control the relative humidity, an important agent of deterioration. Other display cases use a passive means to buffer changes in relative humidity. These contain materials like silica gel that require regular changing and recharging to be effective. Then we need to monitor the microenvironment we’ve created to ensure the cases continue to provide suitable environmental conditions for the different types of records we’ve got on display. We also test the cases to make sure they are airtight to protect the documents on display from pollutants such as dust.
A beautifully illuminated parchment diploma, SP 9/63 is one of 25 items receiving conservation treatment as part of the ‘Illuminated Safe Room Items’ project currently underway in the Collections Care Department. The project aims to stabilise and re-house these vulnerable and valuable records.