Managing Environmental Monitoring

This course will review the agents that cause deterioration of museum and cultural heritage objects and consider how they impact on complex collections. We will discuss the basic interactions of materials with their surroundings and then consider the values and standards that shape environmental decisions and how we communicate our goals. You will examine a range of strategies, from technical to managerial, to understand and modify conditions to deliver acceptable levels of care for collections.

The course will consider the process of environmental management, from the identification of environmental factors to be considered, targets, monitoring conditions and data capture, to the interpretation of results with subsequent action.
You will develop targets for light, ultraviolet light, temperature and humidity for your organisations. There will be a discussion of other targets such as pollution, pests and emergency preparedness and about how to integrate these concepts into the collection management plan.

There will also be practical sessions to test environmental monitoring equipment and an opportunity to discuss the range of equipment available and the opportunities these create. The thorny issue of interpreting data, especially humidity and temperature charts, will be addressed so that you are able to interpret charts from your own organisations and compare them to the targets they have set. The course will complete the cycle by discussing how to respond to and report on the findings of the data. Simple reporting and action plans will be discussed followed by a session focused on how to make influential recommendations.