Honda Miles, Saya; Curran, Katherine; Grau-Bove, Josep; Burman, Esfandiar; (2024) Greening Archives Project Update: How do you store photographs? Online Survey and Air Quality Test. Presented at: Archives & Records Association (ARA) 2024 Conference, Birmingham, UK.

Slideshow ARA24_How do you store Photographs.pptx - Accepted Version Download (22MB)

Abstract

Climate change has turned into our reality and the global mean temperature for 2023 has recorded historical high. Whole world is rushing to minimise the environmental impact of human activities to revive the planet. Collecting Institutions such as public archives and museums are no exception and many institutions have been reassessing the facilities and practice. Flexing the seasonal set points and passive environmental control are rapidly becoming a common practice. However, historical photographic materials are unstable in general archive environmental settings and require higher maintenance than traditional paper documents. Whilst not many collecting institutions need or have designated photographic materials store, yet they do still exist. The Historic England (HE) Archive building has been maintaining the optimal environmental condition for caring for over 14 million physical archive objects, mainly consisting of vulnerable historical photographic materials, for three decades. However, the tightly controlled HVAC system requires significant amounts of electricity and constant attention. The Greening Archives research was initiated in 2021 by the lead conservator of HE Archive to re-evaluate the way the facility has been operated, to find out pragmatic sustainable update options for collection storage facilities and to share the journey with the fellow collecting institutions. This is the second update of the research project at the ARA conference, following the Belfast 2023. This talk focuses on the Online Survey and the Acidic Gas Level Testing aspects of the Greening Archives project, including the original intention of the survey, unexpected outcomes and learnings from them.

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