AIC's 42nd Annual Meeting

The Collections Demography project (2010-2013)1 broke new ground by developing a collection model based on the impacts of material composition, environment and use, and by integrating aspects of how collections are valued by users, for improved decision-making. It is clear that this links closely to the need for institutions to assess the needs of their collections within the current setting of economic, local and global environments, and societal challenges, to proactively address issues of sustainability. International collaborative research involving 6 institutions brought together environmental and material research and integrated this with the societal concept of values we attach to heritage. While there is a substantial body of published research on collection materials and environments, there is a significant need to understand the dynamics of change on collections. In the Collections Demography project the research explored new methodologies of assessing the value of objects in the context of different uses of collections, both qualitatively and quantitatively, to better understand user expectations in relation to library and archival collection care.

A crucial component of the project was a comprehensive public engagement element: interviews with visitors and an attitude questionnaire2, distributed at The National Archives (UK), English Heritage, Library of Congress and the Congress Visitor Center. The analysis of 543 responses provides key data on the reflections of stakeholders on the significance of collections, future care and sustainable use of collections. The results indicated how stakeholders defined the lifetime of objects, and their views on the desired lifetime of collections. This provided important input into the Collections Demography model in view of damage thresholds, and helped to define a suitable planning horizon in collection management.

The collections modelling also built on the solid body of existing research on chemical degradation of historic paper and on the impact of the environment. Innovative research was performed to understand the interactions between the environment and paper-based collections, and new quantitative relationships ('isoperms') were developed linking permanence with environmental data and inherent material properties. New research was undertaken to explore the build-up of wear and tear, enabling collection managers to assess the effect of physical use of collections on the accumulation of damage. The dynamics of these processes was captured quantitatively in ‘isochrones’ that describe the expected collection lifetimes. Additional new research was undertaken to understand the effect of climate change on collections, and demonstrated with two case studies: Brodsworth Hall (English Heritage) and The National Archives, Kew.

The environmental, materials and value research provided evidence to inform the development of a comprehensive collection demographic model, using concepts from economic modelling. As a key deliverable of the Collections Demography, the tool informed the development of holistic collection management guidelines. The collected data informed the collection model of library and archival collections, which are seen as dynamically changing entities. The stock (population) model enables examination and optimisation of different collections management scenarios (with respect to the environment, use or intervention), as suggested in recent environmental management guidance.