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Conserving collections: "finding joy in detail"
Some guidance for appraising conservation challenges
Conserving collections: ‘finding joy in detail’ [1]
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In 2017 the Yackandandah Shire map was conserved by The University of Melbourne’s Grimwade Centre conservators and members of the Yackandandah and District Historical Society. The work was done in the local Public Hall, where the map is now on permanent display. The project was a collaborative one, supported by the Indigo Shire Council and the Yackandandah and District Historical Society. School students visiting the Public Hall to see the map and talk about its conservation. It proved to be a perfect talking point, with conversations ranging from how the map was made and how it was being conserved, to why they like knowing about where they live.
Marcelle Scott
In 2003, the UK National Trust revised their definition of conservation: from the concept of ‘permanent preservation’ to ‘the careful management of change’. [2] This significant step, taken the same year as the UK recorded its (to date) highest-ever temperature, was emblematic of the Trust’s ‘response to social, economic and environmental change’. [3] In recognising that you ‘can’t stop the clock’, the Trust locates conservation within a wider ethos of stewardship. This is a valuable, more people-centred perspective of conservation that I think we can all relate to, regardless of our role, training, collection, budget, or even the hemisphere in which we live.
On their own, however, definitions lack the detail required to help put theory into practice. Two years after revising their definition of conservation, the UK National Trust produced a clearly written reference book that aims to do just that. With more than 900 pages of practical advice on the conservation of an extensive list of object and material types, the new revised Manual of Housekeeping is both an enjoyable read and a detailed primer for anyone with an interest in conserving collections — in museums or houses, public or private. [4]
In her Foreword to the National Trust manual, Fiona Reynolds, then Director-General of the UK Trust, describes housekeeping as a ‘pragmatic word for a deeply skilled and vital task’. [5] With these few words, Reynolds addresses the concern that the important work of conservation might be trivialised by what some might see as a somewhat old-fashioned term. She sets the tone for the book that both pays homage to the traditional housekeeping practices and recognises the knowledge, experience, and skills required to manage and conserve the things we value. She has also captured the essence of conservation: its practical, complex, and essential aspects.
Mould, insects ‘and other hurt or spoyle’; the agents of deterioration
While the ‘careful management of change’ was a new, more meaningful way of defining conservation, the idea was neither simple nor new. In her will of 1601, Elizabeth ‘Bess of Hardwick’ (Countess Shrewsbury) gave clear advice as to how her tapestries and other furnishings were to be looked after and kept in situ:
School students visiting the Public Hall to see the map and talk about its conservation. It proved to be a perfect talking point, with conversations ranging from how the map was made and how it was being conserved, to why they like knowing about where they live.
Like housekeeping, and other professions that have changed over time, conservation practices have also changed, as have the contexts. It relies on highly trained technical specialists with specific materials knowledge and developed analytical, and practical skills, as well as contributions from a range of other skilled practitioners, including citizen experts who bring both practice-based and place-based knowledge.
Conservation can be both preventive and interventive. It can be routine or challenging, and sometimes full of risk — to the practitioner, the environment, or the object; or sometimes to all three. It is no surprise, then, that conservation manuals — like that produced by the UK National Trust, and the more recent Western Australian Museum online publication, Conservation and Care of Collections — need such a hefty page-count to do justice to the subject matter and to their readers. [7]
If you have been to a conservation workshop, or read any of the published conservation manuals, websites, or information sheets, you may be familiar with the ‘agents of deterioration’ and the risk management approaches designed to mitigate their adverse effects. Sometimes ten, sometimes nine, depending on how you count them, the agents of deterioration include (paraphrasing the published literature):
• high light levels, especially daylight and other sources of heat and UV
• pests
• extreme temperatures, high or low
• extreme relative humidity, high or low
• loss of, or dissociation from provenance documentation
• physical damage, e.g. from overcrowding in storage, mishandling, etc.
• fire
• water
• chemical damage from indoor or outdoor pollutants
• theft and vandalism
While many of these risks are present in everyday settings, they all pose particular risks to collections. Their impacts can, however, be mitigated with planning, good management, and regular preventive conservation maintenance. [8] This requires a sustained commitment from everyone involved. It can be demanding and overwhelming, especially if the processes are unfamiliar or outcomes uncertain. Looking at it another way, as Jane Henderson argues, preventive conservation can be an opportunity to ‘find joy in the detail’ and to ‘bring innovation and creativity into problem solving’. [9] This approach recognises that there is no singular ‘right’ approach that will be relevant in all contexts. It means recognising what is feasible, and what is not. Depending on the context, it might mean deciding that providing access to a collection is ‘a greater priority than preservation’. [10]
All welcome! Locals were welcome to view the map while it was being conserved in the Public Hall.
A conservation ‘toolbox’ approach that adapts standard conservation and risk management approaches to what is practical and sustainable for your collection can help transform a list of risks to a practical to-do list that might look something like the following:
• keep a back-up of the collection register
• maintain the museum building and make it secure
• install a fire alarm
• block UV from the storage and display areas
• keep the spaces clean and check for signs of insect, rodent, or other pest activity
Journalists from local print and radio covered the story. From L-R: ABC Goulburn Murray local radio journalists Allison Jess, Ben Nielson, and Grimwade Centre conservator Lois Waters.
Let’s hear it for the four agents of preservation
A focus on what might damage collections, rather than the over-arching processes that preserve collections creates a kind of deficit model of conservation. My colleagues, Nicole Tse, Ana Labrador, Robert Balabar and I prefer a more positive perspective. We view our work through the four agents of preservation: people, place, objects, and time. In this model, people — particularly those who are looking after their personal or their community’s heritage — are central to conservation of our collective heritage, rather than a preoccupation with ‘fixed textbased classification systems’. [11] It is the agency of people that builds understanding of the intrinsic value of heritage, and garners support for its conservation and transmission.
Acquiring an object (legally and ethically) into a well-managed museum is an act of preservation. Documenting it, accessioning it, interpreting it, and keeping the catalogue up-to-date and secure, are fundamental preservation activities. Doing all this while engaging and growing a team of loyal volunteers and supporters who understand and promote good museum practice, the importance of collections, and making them accessible are conservation and preservation acts of heroic proportion.
Posters about the project were put up in shop windows and venues throughout the town.
Joelle Wikens and Debra Hess Norris remind us all that ‘there are no universal standards’, but the ‘the Gold Standard’ of preventive conservation is ‘one that an institution can achieve’. [12] If you are working within your means, take some time to reflect on what you have actually achieved, and congratulate yourself and your colleagues for all that you have done to conserve the objects, stories, contributions, achievements, failures, and losses that are embedded in the collections you manage. You have already made a very significant contribution to our authentic cultural record.
Best wishes to all who, through the ‘careful management of change’, are helping to conserve Australia’s distributed cultural record. May the coming year bring you many joyful conservation moments. []
Marcelle Scott is a conservator and conservation educator with more than thirty years’ experience across the museum sector. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, where her research focusses on conservation theory, ethics, and pedagogy, examined through a citizen conservation model.
Text citation: Marcelle Scott, ‘Conserving collections: “finding joy in detail”’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol. 27(1), Museums Galleries Australia, Canberra, Summer 2018, pp. 20–23.
1. Henderson, Jane, 2018. ‘Managing Uncertainty for Preventive Conservation’, Studies in Conservation, Vol. 63(S1), pp. S108–S112.
2. The National Trust, UK (n.d). ‘Conservation Principles’.
3. ibid.
4. The National Trust, 2011. The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping: Care and conservation of collections in historic houses. The National Trust, Swindon, United Kingdom. First published in 2005.
5. Reynolds, Fiona, 2011. Foreword, in The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping…, ibid.
6. Abey-Koch, Madelaine, 2011. ‘History of Housekeeping’, in The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping…, pp. 21–33.
7. Western Australian Museum, 2017. Collections Care Manual. Available at: <https://manual. museum.wa.gov.au/>.
8. Canadian Conservation Institute, n.d. Agents of Deterioration. Available at: <https://www.canada.ca/en/ conservation-institute/services/ agents-deterioration.html>.
9. Henderson, Jane, 2018. ‘Managing Uncertainty for Preventive Conservation’, op.cit.
10. Wickens, Joelle and Debra Hess Norris, 2018. ‘The Imperative of Soft Skill Development in Preventive Conservation Practice and Training’. Studies in Conservation, Vol. 63, no. S1, pp. S301–306.
11. Tse, Nicole, Ana Labrador, Marcelle Scott and Robert Balabar, 2018. ‘Preventive Conservation: People, objects, place and time in the Philippines’. Studies in Conservation, Vol. 63(S1), pp. S274–S281.
12. Wickens, Joelle and Debra Hess Norris, 2018. ‘The Imperative of Soft Skill Development in Preventive Conservation Practice and Training’. Studies in Conservation, Vol. 63, no. S1, pp. S301–-306.
