Conservation surveys are regarded as the foundation of all long-term programmes of conservation and preservation management, and are usually a minimum requirement for grant applications. A significant proportion of our consultancy work involves the compilation and writing of collection survey reports, and no other company can offer as much experience in this very specialised field. Such a survey has a number of objectives:
Before beginning a survey of the collections themselves, the local environmental and storage conditions are examined in detail. These factors usually have the greatest long-term impact on the longevity of individual objects, and all collections should be examined within this context. When the environmental assessment is combined with considerations as to the age of the original material, the quality of the papers, mounts and binding materials, and their past usage and care, various broad hypothesis can be drawn about the condition of the collections, prior to them being examined in detail. If examination of individual items proves the initial suppositions to be correct, they are then allowed to become conclusions. If, however, the survey analysis disproves them, a larger percentage of objects must be examined, so that the particular patterns of decay are allowed to emerge organically from the survey.
In general, art, archive and library collections follow recognised processes of use and decay. Within most modern collections, or for those that have benefitted from extensive mounting, binding and conservation in the past, it is easier to identify such patterns. For example, large collections of journals, or loose sheets of papers, generally conform to predictable forms of degradation, whereas with older collections, which have usually suffered from a more varied and random approach to past care, it can be difficult to predict trends. When surveying more historical collections, it is normally the case that a larger sample must be examined in detail, in order to understand the various process of decay, and to identify their catalysts.
To survey a medium size collection takes approximately two weeks, with at least one week on site. We aim to return a draft report to the client within three weeks of starting, and allow a further ten days for discussion, when any subsequent changes can be made to the final report. It is therefore possible to compile and present a full survey report in little more than a month, which allows the client to work within the tight timetables demanded by most external funding bodies.
"Over the last 10 years, our paper conservation projects have ranged in size from £30 to £30,000. We have found that nothing is too small to matter, or too large to cope with."