Fundamentals of collections care

Care of collections is the primary duty of any collecting organization and is the shared responsibility of everyone it employs. It consists of a range of activities from providing sound premises with good environmental conditions to ensuring that all the necessary procedures are in place and are understood and followed. Collections care should be the first consideration when devising policies and when planning any operation around significant objects.

Collections care includes the physical care of the objects: creating sound, watertight, environmentally stable buildings with suitable storage and display facilities. It also includes sustainability in the use of energy for operations and in the sourcing and use of archival‑quality materials for both buildings and interiors. Security of the objects is an essential part of collections care and includes having suitable measures and systems to prevent theft, loss or damage, as well as ensuring their

proper environmental protection while on display, in storage and in transit. Optimum environmental conditions for temperature, relative humidity and light should be established for all objects and monitoring should be carried out to ensure that the correct conditions are maintained. Any particularly fragile or susceptible objects should be flagged and continually monitored. Light‑sensitive material should be protected by reducing light levels, the use of blinds and window screens and by a managed rotation of objects from display into storage.

Collections care includes the operations of the organization. This means having policies and procedures that are fit for purpose and suitable to the individual characteristics of the objects and their use.

Policy

A good collections care policy is useful for describing the organization's intentions in caring for its objects, the methods it will use and the guarantees it will give. A collections care policy may contain the following: