Report on conservation in the East Midlands, UK

Conservation Provision in the East Midlands.

If you would like a copy of this report, please contact me.

At  East Midlands Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (EMMLAC)
<URL:http://www.emmlac.org.uk>, we believe that conservation is a
key factor in the long-term survival of the region's collections and
in providing effective access to our collections for education,
general interest and research. Providing effective collections care
is an element of almost every aspect of managing a museum, library
or archive. EMMLAC is committed to assisting in the improvement in
standards of collections care in the region and it will form a major
part of both EMMLAC's Collections and Standards Strategy and East
Midlands Museums Strategy.  In order to achieve these ambitions, a
first step is to indicate the extent of conservation provision in
the region.

EMMLAC commissioned Janet Foster, Jonathan Rhys Lewis and Margaret
Crocket to examine the current position of conservation in the East
Midlands.

The consultants were required to: Review the current position of
conservation and storage facilities in museums, libraries and
archives in the East Midlands by using a questionnaire to find out
how conservation services are used in the region either in-house or
externally contracted, interviewing potential centres of
conservation excellence both institutional and in private practice,
carrying out follow-up interviews with selected number of
respondents from the questionnaire to discover best practice and
areas of special concern and provide an options paper on the
potential for increased regional and cross-domain co-operation on
conservation.

The culmination of this work has been an excellent report detailing
the findings of the project based on the objectives outlined in the
brief. It includes a full review of the conservation provision in
museums, libraries and archives in the East Midlands with
recommendations for future development.

EMMLAC has incorporated some of the recommendation in our 2005/6
operational plan as a first step in developing conservation
provision on the region.  EMMLAC will:

    *   emphasise the importance of excellent conservation provision
        in its Collections and Standards Strategy and work closely
        with EM Museums Hub on the regions Collections Development
        Strategy.

    *   investigate the potential for more effective conservation
        networks in the region working with East Midlands
        Conservators, Midlands Conservators Group (archives) and the
        Institute of Conservation.

    *   contribute to MLA's National Advice Network and advocate the
        benefits of the Conservation Register

    *   support and advocate Renaissance's Subject Specialist
        Networks

    *   identify spare capacity and centres of expertise in the
        region

    *   discuss with HLF the importance of conservation plans in the
        bidding process and identify conservators in the region who
        can support this process.

    *   work with EM Museums Hub to develop training opportunities
        in conservation particularly for smaller independent
        museums.

    *   work with EM Museums Hub, LIEM and EMRAC to promote the use
        of Benchmarks in Collections Care (when the revised version
        of Benchmarks is available).

    *   support museums, libraries and archives in using the
        National Preservation Offices Preservation Needs Assessment.

Jerry Weber
Collections and Archive Strategy Officer
EMMLAC
56 King Street
Leicester LE1 6RL
+44 116 285 1358


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:13
                 Distributed: Friday, September 2, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-19-13-019
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