Collection Care
Email: mick@cartmelconservation.com
Collection care involves actions taken to prevent or delay the deterioration of objects or collections. Cartmel Conservation can help you to care for your object(s) or collections, and the buildings or stores they are housed in, ensuring they are preserved for future generations to enjoy. I can help with preventative conservation, display, storage and movement of objects. I can also work with you to create conservation/maintenance plans for working and moving objects as part of their running procedures.
All objects begin to decay from the moment they are made so it is essential that the conditions are correct for the object in a museum or store to ensure any deterioration is slowed to a minimum. The correct Collection Care or Preventative Conservation is essential to slow the decay mechanism for every object in heritage collections. Temperature, relative humidity, light and pests along with physical forces like damage in transit, vandals, fire or water are a few of the causes that can affect objects and collections.
If you have a collection at risk or want to check and monitor your collections, museums or stores please contact Cartmel Conservation to discuss collection care and preventative conservation.
Movement and Storage of Objects
Museum objects need specialist care whenever they are moved. This can be in the form of bespoke packing cases, made to measure boxes and packing materials or special lifting equipment to move heavy industrial objects. Whether designing and constructing bespoke packing cases or reviewing your storage policies and facilities, Cartmel Conservation can help. See below an example of a specially constructed wooden packing case to transport a two-metre marble statue to its new destination.
Photography Collections
I have experience managing and caring for photography collections, the largest being the C.H. Wood Photographic Collection, acquired by Bradford Museums and Galleries in 2003 holding over 300,000 negatives and prints. The collection includes quarter plate, half plate and whole plate glass negatives. The collection was carefully moved to Bradford Industrial Museum where the storage, documentation and access were considered and have been improved year on year.
To improve the safety and conservation of the negatives each glass plate has been placed into a four flap conservation sleeve for additional protection. Each negative has been catalogued, documented and placed in bespoke metal drawer cabinets to provide better access.
To make the collection more accessible, they have been digitised and can be accessed here.
Care of working historic objects
Understanding the significance of an object will inform the decision on whether to operate an object or not. If the decision to operate an object is made it will need a maintenance plan and operating procedure as well as an operating log. These will all form part of the overall conservation plan of the object. If you have working machinery, line shafting, lathes, looms, steam engines and historic vehicles, please contact me for information on maintenance and conservation procedures.
Image © John Hodgson
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