Collection Forum2006; 21(1–2):70–84
MINIMIZING THE RISKS FROM THE TEN AGENTS OF
The Herefordshire Natural History, Literary and Philosophical Society started in 1836 with the successor (and still extant) Woolhope Field Naturalist Club founded in 1851, (Churcher et al. 1999) with its Hereford Museum and Library opened in 1874. As a consequence, both institutions have or had historic natural history collections, though those of the Ludlow Museum were largely dispersed in the 1950s when the society was wound up.
At Ludlow, the curator John Norton MBE strove to re-acquire dispersed ma- terial, rebuild and enlarge the collections. By the time of his retirement, in the late 1980s the geology collection had reached some 30,000 specimens; the biology collections around 58,000 items and the total size of the collection was around 110,000 items. A re-organization of the service in the 1980s saw curatorial posts aligned around discipline rather than by site, so the post in Ludlow became that of County Curator of Natural History. The geological and biological collections housed at Ludlow are only part of the Shropshire County Museum collections with archaeology and agricultural collections held at other sites.
In Hereford, the former curators, particularly F.C. Morgan (1925–1945) con- centrated their collection efforts on social history, agriculture, art, costumes and textiles. An entomologist curated the natural history collections from the mid 1970s onwards. From this time onwards, collections remained fairly static with the exception of a major entomology bequest in the late 1990s. The collections at Hereford, which are in fact the county collections, total some 150,000 items, of which around 10% is natural history. Currently three and a half full time equivalent curatorial staff are employed by the service.
The collections at Ludlow and Ludlow Museum are currently cared for by a staff of two and a half full time equivalents, one of whom is the Curator of Natural History. During the early 1980s a large number of recent graduates worked on the collections under the auspices of the Manpower Services Commission scheme.
In the 1990s volunteer teams were developed to assist with collection care projects such as re-packing.
Since project completion, both sites have attracted considerable public usage via researcher visits, behind-the-scenes tours, open days and educational activities.
The process of moving collections, leading to better staff knowledge of material, and the greatly improved physical arrangement has meant that collections can be used far more effectively in exhibitions, for research, and to answer enquiries.
THE PROJECTS
A brief comparison between the two projects can be seen in Table 1. At Ludlow, the long lead-in time and frequent setbacks in securing funding allowed a signif- icant amount of work to be undertaken on expert surveys of collections and upgrading packaging and sorting of collections. One key decision taken early on was to standardise to a limited number of box sizes; this made it far easier to calculate the amount of space needed in the new facility and to use this space effectively.
At Hereford, with the exception of some old turkey boxes used for part of the archaeology collection, good quality storage materials had consistently been pur- chased for collection storage since the late 1970s. Regional grant funding schemes had enabled expert assessments to be carried out on the taxidermy, geology and herbarium collections and cataloguing projects on the trilobites and fossil fish.
72 COLLECTION FORUM Vol. 21(1–2) Table 1. Comparison of the Ludlow and Hereford Projects.
Ludlow Hereford
Type of project New build Retrofit and new-build extension
Time scale 1995–2003 2000–2007
Total project cost Approx £4 million £900,000 for first stages; estimated
£1.8 million for new build stage Heritage Lottery Fund
support
£2 million plus project development
£585,000 for Phase 2
£30,000 project planning for Phase 3 Stage 1 pass of £1.2 million for Phase 3
Number of items housed 110,000 150,000
Additional facilities Public library Learning centre Exhibition space
Learning centre Exhibition space Preparaton for move 7 years of collections
upgrades
Collection care generally good. Only 6 weeks notice given for closure of one main collection site.
Collection removals Undertaken in-house Commercial firm De-infestation Complete freeze of all
organic items
Quarantine and spot freezing of sus- pect items during re-location New building replaces One outgrown facility Up to 15 storage locations in at least 7
different buildings
The decision to proceed with both projects came as a result of extreme pressure on space and service reviews. This led to a series of collections assessments and the realization that existing facilities were inadequate for the long term care of collections or to meet the requirements of UK museum standards. The emerging opportunities to seek funding for improvements from the Heritage Lottery Fund meant that it was at last possible to address issues in a strategic rather than fire- fighting problems as they arose.
The main differences between the projects were the restrictions imposed by a retrofit versus a new build (Table 1). The footprint of a previous scheme that had received outline-planning consent restricted both designs. In Ludlow the built scheme was the second design for the site. In Hereford the footprint of the sketch scheme for planning consent and a very tight site dictated the final design; the budget for first two phases of the Hereford project was also already set prior to writing the brief. However, the project in Hereford benefited from lessons learned with the Ludlow project and the phased nature made the project easier and cheaper to manage. For a more detailed description of the Hereford project see Andrew (2005).
Both projects had significant capital investment from the relevant local author- ity, Shropshire County Council for Ludlow and Herefordshire Council for Here- ford but neither project could have been undertaken without the grant aid support form the Heritage Lottery Fund (Table 1). The National Lottery began in the United Kingdom in 1994. Prior to this, funding for capital developments was difficult, especially for collection care projects.
MINIMIZING THE TENAGENTS OF DETERIORATION
The Canadian Conservation Institute wall chart (Costain 1994) identifies five stages to minimise and recover from the effects of the ten agents—avoid, block,
detect, respond and recover. Three levels at which these stages can be applied are also identified—building, portable fittings and procedures. The Cultural Property Risk Analysis model (Waller 2003) takes this framework to a more detailed level, identifying three types of risk:
Type 1—catastrophic and rare Type 2—severe and sporadic Type 3—mild/gradual and constant
Certain combinations of risk types and agents are not feasible (for example, light damage could not be Type 1), thus 24 combinations of agent and type are possible. In developing these briefs, the intention was to avoid or block the effects of as many agents as possible at a building level, then at portable fittings level and finally by procedure. In the future at Hereford it is intended to further refine the approach by adopting the Cultural Property Risk Analysis Model (Waller 2003) to plan collection care projects and budgetary priorities. In Ludlow, the author was appointed just as the initial design phase of the project started in 1995 and the ten agents of deterioration framework was adopted immediately. In Her- eford, the ten agents framework was not adopted until the author took on the project (Andrew 2005).
Zones for Security and Environmental Control
On the Ludlow project, although the brief was welcomed as comprehensive, and minimizing risks from the ten agents was very quickly grasped, the frame- work proved to be rather difficult for the design team to take on from a standing start and apply. Following discussions at the second design stage, Nigel Nixon, the senior museum officer on the Ludlow project added the additional concept of nested security zones, with the most secure and environmentally sensitive material stored in the centre of the building. This concept was also adopted for the Her- eford project.
This concept made grouping of rooms and functions easier and therefore the task of the design team in planning the building layout more straightforward.
Zones varied from 4 (the most secure) to 1 (the least secure), with the high security areas also needing greatest climate control and protection from insect ingress. Keller and Willson (1995) describe a similar concept for security control alone represented graphically with a security bull’s-eye. This approach should also generate efficiencies in operational costs.
PHYSICALFORCES Building Features
The main type 1 physical force considered in many countries is that of an earthquake. Although major fault lines run through Shropshire and the Welsh borders, the very occasional earthquakes are minor with only one quake (scale 3) in the autumn of 2002 noticeable since 1993. Shelving is therefore not protected with earthquake bars, nor are the buildings equipped with cross bracing. The brief for both projects requested an easy flow through the building, common levels on each floor with no steps and a lift between floors. Doors and corridors needed to be wide and high enough to allow the largest objects in the collection to pass
74 COLLECTION FORUM Vol. 21(1–2)
through them. Smooth floors and boxed in compactor rails allow easy use of trolleys and ladders. Both projects failed to achieve all these requirements; for example, minor technical difficulties meant that the rails for the compactor units in Phase 1 of the Hereford project were fixed to the existing floor and boxed in with a sloped edge, which is not ideal for trolleys. The corridors of the Ludlow project were fitted with vinyl flooring with raised bumps, despite passing on the warning against this from staff at Norwich Museum and the effects on solid wheeled trolleys (Irwin 2000).
Fittings
In order to make most efficient use of collections storage space, both projects implemented mobile compactor storage systems to a greater or lesser degree.
Since movement on a compactor equates to a type 3 risk for physical forces, certain fragile collections including pinned entomological collections and fluid collections were viewed as unsuitable for mobile storage and are housed on static shelving or cabinets. The Ludlow fluid collection has been stored on re-used wooden shelving as this was seen to offer slightly more resistance to accidental slipping of containers via friction. Since the collection is quite small and not densely packed, jars are grouped into 10 cm deep polypropylene storage trays to prevent accidental toppling and to contain any spillage (type 2 physical force risks). A major type 3 risk from physical forces is associated with poor storage methods. In Ludlow, very little money had been available to spend on collection storage in the past with most items stored in poor quality open card trays resting on cotton wool and then in shirt boxes obtained from the local gentlemen’s out- fitter. Larger specimens were stored in an assortment of containers from old wood- en drawers to corrugated cardboard boxes. Following a collection assessment in 1993 a decision was taken to upgrade collection storage to minimize type 3 risks.
With seven years lead in time to the collection move, upgrading of packaging also meant that specimens could be re-packed with care into containers that min- imize risks during the move and could be used for long term storage.
Specimen boxes with clear lids in a four standard sizes that were units of each other were selected and these were padded either with Plastazote
威
(closed cell polyethylene) foam or acid free tissue pads (see Watkinson 1987, Waller 1992) and then stored in one of four standard depths of lidded storage boxes. Re-packing work was undertaken by volunteer teams, supervised by a volunteer supervisor.The size of the smallest box formed the basis for calculating the size of specimen drawers and the choice of supplier. Drawer and bay size was also a major factor in determining the size of the new store and the building itself.
Volunteers also made Ethafoam or Plastazote
威
(closed cell polyethylene foam) storage bases for larger geology specimens, osteology specimens and mounted birds that would not fit in boxes, adapting the concept of a form fitted palette and taxidermy mounts (Fitzgerald et al. 1992, Fuller 1992). For heavier specimens that required two people to lift them, an appropriate size of 20 mm marine ply base board was fitted with two battens or skids screwed to the underside, to provide access for lifting. The Ethafoam bases were fixed to the wooden base board using hot melt adhesive. Larger osteology and geology specimens were also provided with dust covers, sewn from Tyvek威
, a spun bonded polyethylene sheet.Mounted birds were provided with polythene bag covers, occasionally with wire
hoops to hold the bag away from less evenly shaped specimens, adapting the hoop and bag cover system of Fuller (1992). The larger geological and osteolog- ical specimens were not uniform enough to use bags. The bird bases were cut to extend beyond any protruding parts of the specimen,significantly reducing the risk of damage to specimens by crushing against another specimen or container. In Hereford there had been a significant investment since the mid 1970s in good quality storage boxes but without standardization of container size. Hereford and Ludlow now use the same style and sizes of individual specimen box and regu- larly procure such materials jointly. This will enable Hereford to adopt the same style of metal drawer storage unit as Ludlow during the planned new-build ex- tension.
Procedures
At Ludlow, the improved packaging meant that collections could be safely moved and then stored in their containers without the need to insert and then remove and dispose of temporary packaging materials during the move. Using a limited number of box depths in one standard format meant that the boxes could easily be stacked for moving onto palettes into neat piles that were then secured with tensioned bands. L-shaped profile cardboard edging strips were used (and re-used several times) to stop the tensioned band from cutting into the boxes.
This was the only temporary packaging used on boxed specimens and was chosen in preference to film wrapping the palettes as it generated very little waste. Col- lection moves in Hereford have mainly been carried out by removal contractors with only large social history items moved since the author came into post.
THEFT& VANDALISM
Building Features
Both projects followed the concept of nested security zones (Table 2). Pre- venting illicit access to collections was the principle concern with the securest zones located deep within the building and housed in rooms with no windows and limited doors. This concept was supported at the fittings level with good quality locks, closed circuit television (CCTV) coverage, high quality alarms and further with good procedures. Both projects benefited from security advice given at the design stage from the security advisor at the former Museums & Galleries Commission, now MLA (Museums Libraries and Archives Council). The advisor also made two site visits to the Hereford site. The layout of the Ludlow site meant that there are no windows on the ground floor of the building, since the ground floor also accommodates a mezzanine; windows into offices, labs and the research room are at second floor level and above.
Fittings
In Hereford the few remaining ground floor windows are protected by welded steel bars with bolts that are epoxy bolted into the brickwork. All other windows are blocked from the inside, but planning conditions prevented actual removal and bricking up of the windows. At both sites, researchers can be monitored in a dedicated research room; at Ludlow this is achieved via a window from an adjoining office, at Hereford via a recording CCTV link to the adjoining office.
76 COLLECTION FORUM Vol. 21(1–2) Table 2. Description of Zones for security and environmental control.
Zone
number Accessed by Degree of control Functions
1 Public on a drop-in basis Staff
Comfort heating, no security Entrance lobby Displays in show cases Public toilets
2a Staff
Public by request
Comfort heating Key control to rooms
Administration offices 2b Staff
Public by appointment or invitation from staff
Comfort heating Key control to rooms
Tea room/staff room Staff entrance Educational facilities 3a Staff and volunteers,
other visitors by ap- pointment/authorisa- tion of staff.
Comfort heating, environmental control not required
Doors looked when not in use
Loading bay Staff toilets Plant rooms Staff offices 3b Staff and volunteers, or
for researchers and other visitors by ap- pointment/authorisa- tion of staff.
Within the range 45–60% RH fluctuations possible, needs to be stable, but does not need plumbed-in de-humidifiers/
humidifiers
Key control, doors looked when not in use
Exhibition crate storage Research room/library
areas
Documentation room Large (stable) object
storage areas Packaging stores 3c Staff and volunteers, or
for researchers and other visitors by ap- pointment/authorisa- tion of staff.
Stable environment required within the range 45–60% RH fluctuations possible, but may need de-humidifiers
Key control, doors locked when not in use
Volunteer work room Collection quarantine
area Conservation
laboratories Collection work rooms Education/handling
collection store 4 Access by collection
staff only
Doors always locked, strict key issue control. No windows, close environmental control determined by collection type in storage.
Collections stores
Procedures
Procedures are in place to vet researchers with differing levels of name and address or reference checks in place depending on the sensitivity of material that is requested. Both sites aim to offer public access to collection storage facilities.
In Ludlow, this is possible via a route that allows visitors to inspect two stores from the mezzanine level and to inspect the conservation lab via a viewing win- dow. In Hereford public access to date has been offered via guided behind the scenes tours for pre-booked groups, with ten visitors for every two members of staff and by a series of open days, three in the first year of opening, rising to ten per year in future. Additional changes to storage layout are planned in Hereford to ensure that the public can enter the stores and at least one of the compactor bays to gain a better understanding of the function of reserve collections. The best method to achieve this is being refined as we learn from our experiences.
Allocating each visitor with a giant object label on a piece of string to wear around their necks and only allowing sixteen visitors at a time has proved suc- cessful so far in restricting and monitoring the number of self-guided visitors on the site.
FIRE
Building Features
The zoning concept at both sites has created a series of compartments arranged in compliance with UK building and fire regulations. Doors that allow two hours protection from fire divide the compartments. In Ludlow, there was a precedent of separate stores for each collection type and new stores were created in the same groupings, comprising geology, natural history, social history and fluid col- lection areas so that the risk of fire from fluid collections was minimized. In Hereford, collections have been arranged initially in larger rooms with the location governed by the size of object and the ideal environmental conditions. The orig- inal brief for the Ludlow project specified a sprinkler system. Investigations proved that there was insufficient water pressure to run such a system from the mains water supply, so we considered and then ruled out a system with its own water tank as this would have required a water tank the size of a large swimming pool to be located in the roof, thereby increasing the risk of water damage to an unacceptable level. Instead an inert gas (Inergen) system was installed to cover collection storage areas only; this system sounds a claxon and a flashing light before releasing an inert gas mixture into the room and starving the fire of oxygen.
Both sites are covered by a fire detection system with automatic calling to the fire station. The Ludlow Fire Brigade, like many rural services in the United Kingdom, is a staffed by volunteers who respond to pager call-outs. Although the new site is closer to the fire station than the old collections store, attendance time is likely to be at least 10 minutes. Despite improving staff safety by upgrading the fire detection at the old store from a manual system, we were advised that in a fire we would probably lose the contents of whichever store the fire started in.
A combination of lessons learned from Ludlow over water pressure, a restricted budget on the Hereford project and a view that we could minimise risk in this area meant that a traditional approach to fire detection and control had to be taken using an automatic detection and calling system and local fire extinguishers. Un- like Ludlow, Hereford has a permanent fire service and the fire station is less than half a mile from the site.
Fittings
At Hereford, original accession registers and collection histories are housed in fire resistant cabinets offering 2 hours protection, and most of the free standing cabinets are currently on palette bases for easy manoeuvring and evacuation.
Procedures
The principles at both sites are to minimize risks from fire with a no smoking policy, good housekeeping procedures with corridors, high visibility closed fire doors free from obstructions, backed up by the fire detection system with auto- matic calling of the fire brigade. English law requires an inspection by a fire