The National Preservation Office

Caring for Collections Proceedings of the National Preservation Office Annual Conference 21 November 2000 British Library

NPO 2002

The National Preservation Office is supported by The British Library, The Public Record Office, The National Library of Scotland, Trinity College Dublin, The Consortium of University Research Libraries, Cambridge University Library, The National Library of Wales, The Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

©The Contributors 2000 First published 2002 by The National Preservation Office British Library 96 Euston Road London NW12DB

ISBN 0 7123 4781 X

Contents Contributors

iii

Opening address Bill Simpson

1-2

Keynote speech: Knowing the need of the known; knowing the need of the unknown Helen Shenton

3-11

Benchmarks in Collection Care Nancy Bell

12-18

Strategies affecting museums in Scotland and their impact on collections care Jane Robinson

19-24

Model for assessing preservation needs in libraries Helen Forde, Alison Walker, Steven Jones, Julia Foster

25-39

lte:source and the stewardship agenda Neville MacKay

40-50

Summary of the conference proceedings Bill Simpson

51-52

n

Contributors Nancy Bell, Senior Conservator, Oxford Colleges Conservation Consortium

Helen Forde, Head of Preservation Services, Public Record Office

Julia Foster, Database Applications Development Officer, National Preservation Office

Steven Jones, Head Archive Inspection Officer, Public Record Office

Neville Mackay, Chief Executive, i?e:source: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries

Jane Robinson, Conservation and Collections Care Manager, Scottish Museums Council

Helen Shenton, Head of Collection Care, British Library

Bill Simpson, Chair National Preservation Office Management Committee, Librarian, Trinity College Library Dublin

Alison Walker, Deputy Director, National Preservation Office

in

OPENING ADDRESS Bill Simpson

It is my job to welcome you as Chair of the National Preservation Office (NPO) Management Committee, and it is my great pleasure to do so. This morning we have a superb array of speakers, from a variety of backgrounds in libraries, museums and archives. It is a particular pleasure to include as one of our speakers Neville Mackay, the Chief Executive of i?e:source, given the very significant cross-sectoral work that his organisation does, and will be doing in the future in relation to the whole area of preservation.

A key element of today's conference is the assessment of preservation needs, since we all need to know what is required before we can address that need sensibly and confidently in terms of our use of resources. The event coincides with the formal launch of the NPO's Preservation Assessment Survey, which some of the organisations represented today are very generously helping to fund. I thank all those of you who have agreed to do this, and hope many more of you will sign up to provide the relatively small level of funding needed to take forward this very important venture. From this we hope that we will gain a much clearer picture of the state of our collections in Britain and Ireland, and at the same time that this will give us the background on which we can plan sensibly to use our resources effectively in relation to future activities.

I can announce this morning the setting up of a body, SCOLD-PRES. SCOLD is the Standing Committee on Legal Deposit, and SCOLD-PRES is a body that links the SCOLD libraries, being the six legal deposit libraries for the UK, with the NPO. It will have the role initially of assigning primary preservation responsibility for legal deposit collections among the six libraries. This is very important as in the past there has been no clear recognition of what those responsibilities should be. We believe that SCOLD-PRES will lead us in this direction. The Preservation Assessment Survey will take us much further forward than SCOLDPRES in identifying the much broader needs, retrospective as well as future, to enable

us to tackle the enormous issues that we all face in terms of preserving the collective heritage of these islands. It is an ongoing commitment and will take many years to achieve. I congratulate the NPO and the British Library for the work they have put into this.

I can inform you, as Chair of the NPO, that the Tavistock Institute is conducting a review of the NPO. This is a very positive review in which the NPO itself is playing a full part. The review will enable the future course of the NPO and of the whole preservation activity within the UK and Ireland, to be mapped out. It will highlight the resources needed to move forward, and will look to see how best the NPO can serve the needs of the wider community1.

I am very conscious this morning that I am probably one of the few non-practitioners of preservation at this conference. I practise it indirectly as Librarian of a major library, but most of you this morning are probably direct practitioners. I am very conscious of how little resource we dedicate to this very important activity. Those of us who are Librarians and heads of institutional libraries will always have the problem of balancing resources so as to provide for the new, as well as conserving and preserving what we have already. There is always a tension between the two. However, the activities of the NPO, and particularly the Preservation Assessment Survey tool, will enable you all to make your case more effectively to people like me. In return we can then make the case on your behalf to our funding bodies, enabling us to go forward in the way that we all know we should.

And let us not forget that preservation is not only about traditional printed media, but also about all media, including electronic materials. That is one of the issues we are engaging with, both through the NPO and in some of the papers today.

The review of the NPO was completed in 2001.

Keynote speech: 'Knowing the need of the known; knowing the need of the unknown' Helen Shenton

I am going to look at some of the issues facing those who are responsible for caring for library collections in particular, and I have divided these into knowing the need of the known, and knowing the need of the unknown. These issues include achieving a balance between the current and future preservation needs of both analogue and digital collections, and assessing just what those preservation needs are. I will deal with them in the context of a number of initiatives currently under way here at the British Library (BL), and also broaden out to collaborative cross-sectoral stewardship, touching on the topics of collection care. As Bill Simpson has mentioned, given that today is the launch of the National Preservation Office's (NPO) Preservation Assessment Survey methodology and software, I will mention tools for assessing preservation needs and levels of collection care, again illustrating how we are caring for the collections at the BL.

In order to address the current and future preservation requirements of both analogue and digital collections, the first thing to know is the need. How bad is it? How good is it? What is the size? What is the nature of the preservation requirement? We need to know the preservation needs of the collections both now and in the future, so that we can make best use of resources, and so that we can develop the shape, organisation, skills mix and ethos of a collection care function at institutional and national strategic level.

Knowing the need of the known For the largely traditional physical collections that the BL currently holds, we have just introduced two key performance indicators relating to the care of collections. The BL had to devise a small number of key performance indicators for its grant-awarding government body, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Most performance indicators are baldly, simplistically quantitative. For example, within museums and galleries, performance indicators can be simply measured by the

number of visitors through the door. Within preservation and conservation, performance is often measured in terms of numbers of items conserved, numbers of items boxed and numbers of metres of book stock cleaned or furbished. These performance indicators are useful, but they are not qualitative. They do not give the whole picture, nor do they reflect the impact that the preservation effort in its entirety has on collections year on year. That preservation effort can include everything from environmental monitoring, to storage, to disaster preparedness, to researching materials and techniques. For example, the BL is looking at different microenvironments and oxygen-free storage including copper-lined jewel cases for CDROMs. All that effort to minimise damage and minimise risk has a greater impact on the wellbeing of the collection than is reflected by the numbers of items conserved after damage has occurred.

There are two key performance indicators that will encompass preservation. The first indicator is the percentage of the collection in stable condition. This has been developed into a major three-year project to know the condition of the BL's collection in order to prioritise and programme work. The Preservation Assessment Survey, which is being launched today, has been developed and adapted for this purpose. The second key performance indicator will be the percentage of the collection in appropriate conditions. This is a cross-functional initiative spanning preservation, storage and estates. It looks at the environmental conditions in which all the collections are held, and it forms part of a collection care life cycle management idea.

The first key performance indicator: Percentage of collection in stable condition We do not know the overall condition of all the BL's collections. There was an assessment of the brittle paper problem and of the preservation backlogs in 1994, which called on curatorial knowledge and judgement. However, there has never been an overall objective assessment of condition, which surely is a starting point for priority setting. Therefore over three years the BL is carrying out three levels of condition survey. The first level is very broad and library-wide. It has now been completed, and involved assessing the condition of a sample of 400 items from the whole of the BL's collections. Such a sample size will give a ninety-five per cent confidence rating. I suggest that unless you are a statistician you will have to suspend your disbelief slightly about this. The second level survey is a very comprehensive

coverage of different areas of the Library, to compose a detailed and comparative picture of the condition of the different collections. It will comprise a number of separate collections-based assessments for comparing the different collections. This is the 'apples and pears' concept. We can then compare the comparative need of, for example, music manuscripts with maps. This phase is being carried out currently. The third stage is very focused and is linked to the corporate bibliographic system and a preservation management system, which is again concurrently being developed. These are critical for integrating the surveys into the BL system, with usage data and so on. In reality, I have seen too many surveys started and not finished, or completed and not acted on, and therefore if we cannot make use of the information, there is no point in doing it, whatever the political imperatives. Conversely, I have seen what can be very successfully achieved with condition surveys to drive the conservation and preservation programmes of work.

The very first broad level broad brush survey which has been completed, indicates that the condition of the BL's collections are such that:

•

sixty-five per cent are in good condition

•

twenty-nine per cent are in fair condition

•

seven per cent are in poor condition

•

one per cent is unusable.

These results are then aggregated to form the stable and unstable categories on which we will have to report to DCMS. 'Good' and 'fair' make up the stable category, and 'poor' and 'unusable' make up the unstable category. In this very first broad brush sweep of the BL's collections, as currently constituted, about ninety-two per cent are stable, and eight per cent are unstable. I would stress that these findings are 'work in progress'. The method that we have used has been adapted from the Preservation Assessment Survey, and the information will be fed into a national database. Thus the BL will be contributing to a national picture for a national preservation strategy for libraries and archives in the UK, being a major plank of the NPO's remit.

The second key performance indicator: Percentage of collection in appropriate conditions This second key performance indicator is deceptively simple, and this again is a major project, with the first report expected by the end of this financial year. Given the complexity and size of the BL, this is a good example of lateral working across the Library, as it involves preservation, storage and estates. In order to know the current percentage of collections in appropriate environmental conditions, one has to:

a) define a location b) define a collection c) audit the environmental conditions (as there are other stores as well as St. Pancras) d) define the appropriate conditions for the type of material in the collections.

The appropriate conditions for mediaeval manuscripts might be different to those for gramophone records, which may be different to oriental photographs, which may be different to duplicate copy grade literature. One then needs to map the collections by environmental location, and assess what percentage are in appropriate environmental conditions. One must then identify where there need to be improvements, and prioritise the work of those improvements. This ultimately is the main reason for carrying out the survey. Improvements might entail moving parts of the collection, or working to improve the conditions themselves. In this work we are using a level of collection care approach based on the Library of Congress' 'platinum', 'gold' and 'silver' method, as well as taking elements from the very useful benchmark work which we will hear about from Nancy Bell2. This is a major undertaking, but is essential and provides fundamental information for tracking the impact of aspects of the preservation effort year on year. I am acutely aware that there is a possibility of being hoisted on the petard of these performance measure figures if the figures are only simplistically glanced at, because the preservation need is growing. Thus a constant preservation input could have less impact year on year. However, there are various issues that make demonstrating the impact of the preservation effort more and more important. These include: • :

the size of the BL's collections are growing

Seepps 12-18

•

the BL's collections are increasingly being used

•

that even with the best will in the world and with optimum environmental conditions the collections are largely organic and deteriorating due to the laws of atrophy

•

formats are proliferating e.g. the urgency of the preservation of electronic material

• financial accountability is growing tighter and tighter •

there are more and more calls on grant aid generally.

I will now move on to trying to anticipate the preservation needs of the unknown.

Anticipating the needs of the unknown The BL has commissioned a number of studies analysing the trends in publishing, and is developing collection development policies in response. These findings contributed to the scope of the digital library system, a major new project to develop an infrastructure for the long-term access to the National Published Electronic Archive. This is being worked on collaboratively with the Royal Library in The Hague. They are at the same stage as the BL of developing an infrastructure using the same supplier, having gone through a parallel procurement exercise.

What do we currently know? In 2000, the BL has got four terabytes of electronic material, whether purchased, acquired under voluntary legal deposit since January 2000, or created itself by digitisation. This electronic material needs preserving, and forms the basis of the digital library system. The 'unknown' is the future not only of electronic publishing, but also of the whole technological environment. This includes, for example, anticipating when BL readers will be able to access the catalogues of all national libraries from their TV sets; something our chief executive at the moment is calling the 'virtual bookshelf.

A report commissioned by the BL's policy unit from Mark Bide and associates3 gives a few indicative factors on the scale of future publishing in digital and conventional formats. The report anticipates developments in technology, for example, bandwidths. It reports that there are no satisfactory hand-held e-books at the moment, and questions what the situation will be in ten years' time. It looks into the economy of publishing, elements of social change, the Web, and the development of individuals as publishers. The report goes on to estimate the scale of future publishing in digital and conventional formats, within the areas which reflect the BL's collections. It estimates the future number of electronic books, scholarly journals, newspapers and magazines, patents, maps, theses, conference proceedings and sound recordings. These developments will obviously have an impact on the future preservation requirements of the BL's collections. As an example, the report predicts that by 2010 between sixty-five per cent and ninety-five per cent of scholarly journals will be published only digitally. What does that mean in terms of assessing preservation needs for the future? On a very simple, practical level, if there are fewer paper journals there will be a large implication for the amount of binding of periodicals, as well as storage and retrieval ramifications. In the interim, there are preservation implications of parallel publications. Where there is a paper and an electronic copy, do we preserve both? Then the preservation resource is being required to do more and to go further. Developments in the publishing sector like JSTOR and Highwire, and discussions about publishers taking on some of the archiving responsibility, also need to be taken into account, as do developments in e-science. The tectonic shifts for a preservation function thus start to become clear.

The newspapers and magazines sector is another area where digital developments have huge implications for preservation. The report, and I quote again, 'does not anticipate that existing products will migrate to a like-for-like electronic publication'. The trends are in the opposite direction, with online titles diverging considerably from the print brands out of which they were originally born. There will thus be many new services for the dissemination of news. Do they all need preserving? The implications are for more and different types of preservation activity. There are well-known 3

Bide, Mark et al, Digital preservation: an introduction to the standards issues surrounding the deposits of non-print publications. LIC research report 23. British National Bibliography Research Fund report 97. London: Library and Information Commission, 1999.

practical considerations about the inherent fragility of newsprint to consider, as well as storage implications, and quality control issues, for example preservation microfilming standards. Newspapers in particular are an area where a fundamental reassessment of preservation strategy is needed to care for those collections responsibly. Newspapers and journals are where these issues are biting first. Thus once the preservation needs of both the known and the unknown are quantified as far as possible, there are implications for those of us charged with caring for collections, and I will touch on a further three points on the conference theme.

Caring for those caring for collections It is important to maintain and develop the people caring for the collections. This entails a combination of succession planning to replenish traditional skills, and the development of new preservation skills. It covers successful planning for practical skills, based on the preservation and conservation needs of the collections. At the BL there are a number of conservators retiring, representing the loss of hundreds of years of practical experience. At the same time there is something of a crisis in book conservation training, thus making this loss a major issue. Simultaneously, we have to develop new skills, competencies and professions for the changing preservation needs of the collections. In digital preservation, we are adopting a two-prong strategy of a combination of home grown and bought-in competencies. To develop people in post, I have commissioned from the NPO digital preservation training for everyone within the BL's preservation department. To buy in expertise, we are in the process of recruiting a digital preservation co-ordinator. This has been a fascinating exercise and has flushed out people from the oil exploration industry and knowledge engineering, and has shown that there are a lot of digital imaging technologists out there.

The economics of caring for collections The range of preservation activities is broadening, and alternative and innovative sources of funding are needed. On a local level, earlier this year we reorganised and re-launched Adopt-a-Book. The scheme pays for two conservators' salaries. There are different levels of donation from £15 to £1,000, and donors can come and meet their book, have behind-the-scene tours of the conservation studios, and take advantage of other benefits depending on the level of support. This again was a fascinating undertaking. The television celebrity Frank Skinner talked about the Adopt-a-Book

appeal on his late night live TV show, resulting in donations shooting up for Father's Day. People often adopt to commemorate an anniversary or a significant birthday. I was in Cambodia recently and was much amused to see that the world monument funding in Angkor had an Adopt-a-Garuda scheme for a mere £20,000.

Collaboration Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration: It is almost as much a mantra as access, access, access.

Here in preservation, collaboration ranges from Raman laser

spectroscopy with University College London, a European-funded Sepia project, a Research Support Libraries Programme project to conserve Asian documents, the International Dunhuang Project, and the possible development of that preservation management system I mentioned previously with the Library of Congress. In the areas of stewardship, i?e:source was created for the convergence of the archive, library, museum and gallery sectors. We will hear from Neville later about the stewardship strategy, which will be finalised for ite:source by April 20014. I would also like to hear about the single culture online initiative. The NPO is producing a national strategy for libraries and archives in the UK and Ireland, and Bill has already mentioned the establishment of the standing committee on legal deposit preservation group, which is to look at the possibility of collaborative preservation between the legal deposit libraries5. The Benchmarks in Collection Care is a very good, practical example of cross-sectoral working. It was partly based on the Museums and Galleries Commission publication for museums and galleries, which was seeking designated status.

Thus I have touched on knowing the needs of the known, and the unknown, and some of the preservation implications of those. We are going to hear in particular about how to know the need of the known, i.e. how to assess the preservation and conservation needs of existing physical analogue collections in libraries and archives. I would highly recommend to you the Preservation Assessment Survey tool being launched today. It builds on fifteen years' experience of condition surveys in museums, archives and libraries in Europe and the US. It is now a requirement of 4 5

See pps 40-50 SCOLD-PRES, see p 1

10

HLF conservation grants that this method is used. It is not quite a matter of 'it is so good I bought the company', but I have put the BL's money where my opinion is. We are one year through a three-year project being carried out by my colleague, Isabel Simons. Isabel is doing a superb job assessing all the BL's eighteen million books, comprising 150 million single items, using an adaptation of the model. It was always recognised by the advisory panel that the more specific level of assessment, useful for an individual collection, was missing, and would be required. That is partly why this method has been adopted and adapted by the BL, not only to endorse the method, but by developing it to the next layer, in conjunction with the NPO's original database designer, Julia Foster, it will help the wider community. I particularly urge you to watch out for the 'what if button. Thank you very much for your kind attention.

6

Benchmarks in Collection Care for Museums, Archives and Libraries: A Self-Assessment Checklist. London: Resource, 2002.

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Benchmarks in Collection Care Nancy Bell Background to the development of the 'benchmark' model While it is generally agreed that a broad programme of preservation is one of the most effective methods of providing for a collection, implementing a comprehensive preservation strategy can be an extremely difficult task. The size of the collection aside, financial, political, and practical issues often impede good progress. What has proved most vexing for preservation managers is firstly defining exactly what should be included in a coherent strategy, and secondly, defining an appropriate level of care. The 'Benchmarks in Collection Care' model described here will go some way in overcoming these two obstacles to achieving an integrated preservation programme.

In 1999 the Library and Information Commission funded a project to develop Benchmarks in Collections Care for UK Libraries.7 The purpose of the project was to develop a scheme that provided a set of clear and realistic benchmarks to describe how library collections are cared for. One of the first steps of this project was to critically evaluate a representative number of collection care assessment packages already up and running, to determine their general usefulness and to identify any difficulties in using them. Surprisingly, numerous collection care assessment packages have been used for some twenty years, mostly in the museum sector in North America and Australia. These assessments proved to be a very useful method for gathering and reporting information on the status of a collection, and so determining the preservation requirement. They were, and continue to be used, as an invaluable tool for strategic planning. Interestingly, large strategic funding bodies, including both government and private sources drove the impetus for the initial development and subsequent implementation of assessment packages. The Getty Conservation Institute, the Canadian Council for Archives, and professional organisations such as the Museums Council innovated and developed the use of collection assessment.

What exactly are these assessments? Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to evaluating the stewardship of a collection. Both have a similar aim of providing an

12

overall assessment of an organisation's preservation policies, strategies and procedures. The areas usually included in a collection assessment are:

•

acquisition and disposal policies

•

storage and handling of collections

•

exhibition in loan practice

•

environmental monitoring and control

•

emergency preparedness

•

the provision of surrogate copies

•

staff training

An outside consultant very often carries out collection assessments, although a number of self-assessment packages do exist. Both methods follow standard management review practice of interviewing staff and critically evaluating all the functions of an organisation. This exercise builds up an overall profile of an organisation. To ensure that information has been collected systematically, assessments often have very lengthy questionnaires. The information is then synthesised by either the consultant or staff, and presented to senior managers in the form of a report, detailing risk to the collections, with recommendations for improvement. While comprehensive in scope, this method of building a profile of a collection falls short in many respects. The process is highly subjective and does not offer a mechanism to measure progress over time, nor does it allow comparison to be made between institutions.

In contrast to this questionnaire report type of collection assessment, a newer model has emerged in recent years, which more effectively measures the performance of institutional preservation practice. It does this by evaluating performance against specific indicators, called benchmarks. It can describe collection care at different levels, ranging from a minimum standard or basic level to best practice. There are many advantages to this system. Mainly it provides a more objective assessment of the level of collection care, and it can be used across sectors. It has the advantage of

7

Bell, Nancy and Lindsay, Helen, Benchmarks in Collections Care for UK Libraries. London: Library and Information Commission, 2000. ISBN 1 902394 27 5

13

charting progress over time, and allows comparisons within an institution, or with local or regional bodies. If used correctly the benchmark model has another advantage in being pro-active rather than adversarial. In other words, too often a consultant, a preservation manager or a conservator is seen as the angel of darkness looming from the side of the room issuing prescriptive actions which are too often resisted. The benchmark system provides the focus for participation in discussion to arrive at a consensus.

From our critical review of numerous schemes, we recommended that a benchmark model, rather than a collection assessment package, be developed for UK libraries, since it offers so many advantages. Over a period of months the benchmark scheme was drafted and was then subject to many revisions in consultation with an advisory panel. This panel included representatives from a variety of libraries and archive collections. A draft of the benchmark scheme was tested at various stages in eight different libraries, and was further revised in the light of this testing.

A critical assessment of collection care schemes, and the field testing exercise, was extremely useful. It highlighted several key factors essential to the successful take-up of any model. These are:

•

the aims of the assessment must be absolutely clear

•

the assessment model must have a balance of detail so as not to be overwhelming

•

it has to have a good clear design - clarity of use is essential.

The result of the extensive consultation process and subsequent revisions is the Benchmarks in Collection Care for Museums, Archives and Libraries: A SelfAssessment Checklist}

7. Benchmarks in Collection Care for Museums, Archives and Libraries: A Self-Assessment Checklist. London: Resource, 2002. Available from Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, 16 Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9AA. Tel: 0207 273 1458.

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When we finished our report we recommended that the library section be revised to accommodate the needs of the archive and museum community. This work is now complete.

What is the benchmark model and how is it used? The title Benchmarks in Collection Care, may need further explanation. The term 'collections care' or 'care of collections' is a broad concept, broader than the more familiar term 'preservation'. It first gained ground within the museum sector and has been used to describe a broad range of activities that have an impact on the preservation of the collection. The second term needing definition is the word 'benchmark'. Simply stated, a benchmark is a defined level of performance set by consensus or peer review. Benchmarking may be used to establish a set of procedures and practice, or it may be used to define levels of practice such as 'good', 'better' or 'best', with each level building on the previous one and subsuming it.

What is the benchmark model? It is important to realise that the benchmark model is not a standard, although national standards have been incorporated. It sets out a clear and realistic level of practice to help libraries and archives evaluate how well they are looking after their collections. It does not simply highlight deficiencies, but provides a mechanism for moving a collection care programme forward. Alternatively it can simply act as a mechanism for establishing preservation as an integrated activity within an organisation. The benchmark model is divided into ten categories, internationally agreed to be the most important factors affecting the preservation of a collection. They are:

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policy

•

building

•

storage

•

housekeeping

•

handling

•

environmental monitoring and control

•

exhibitions and loans

•

conservation

15

•

surrogate copies

•

non-traditional material

•

disaster preparedness.

Each of these preservation-related headings is listed at the top of each page of the publication. Each broad heading is divided into three sub-headings, which usually cover policy, staff responsibility and practice. These are then divided into three categories: basic, good and best practice.

•

Basic practice is a minimum standard that all collections can achieve. The basic level tends to cover staff responsibility and the most basic provision of storage.

•

Good practice is an achievable standard beyond basic practice.

•

Best practice is the highest standard that any library can achieve, and usually refers to policy and resource issues.

In preparing the statements, we aimed to avoid yes/no answers. For example, the question 'Do you have a disaster plan?' will generally elicit the response 'yes'. 'Do you have a written disaster plan and does everybody know about it?' may be responded to with the answer 'no'. Instead we have used statements like 'A disaster plan will be written within twelve months' and 'A disaster plan is written and has been reviewed annually'.

The assessment can be used in a variety of ways. It can be used to assess an entire collection, like the British Library. Alternatively it can be used to get every storage area to a level of good or best practice, or it can be used to evaluate a discrete collection within an institution such as Asian material. It is important to decide which of the three levels of care the institution wishes to achieve, and why. For example, where a library has non-retention material, the basic level of care may be viewed as most appropriate, thus allowing resources to be directed to material considered of a higher priority.

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Who should undertake the assessment? The success of any benchmarking scheme will depend on the willingness of staff to participate in the exercise. Key members of staff should be included and represent all interests and levels within an organisation. Ideally some of the team should be in a position to make decisions and be able to influence their implementation. To be successful the group charged with this responsibility should be enthusiastic and willing to make a commitment to the project, and most importantly, be supported by senior managers.

How long will it take? The length of time needed to undertake an evaluation would of course vary according to the size of the collection and the number of people within the library participating in the exercise. The scheme will be most successful if the assessment is seen as an ongoing process to review current practice and then to chart progress. The time spent on this exercise if taken seriously is not insignificant, but extremely worthwhile. Experience suggests it is most effective if the survey is done in small sections at a time.

How should the benchmarks be implemented? The layout of the benchmark scheme provides sufficient space to include recommendations for the short, medium and long term. Thus, for example, one of the first pages is headed 'Policy'. Good policy is the basis of any collection management programme. Level one basic practice requires that the library make provision in its statement of purpose for preservation. If the library or archive does not have a clear statement of purpose, the action would be to write one, and update existing statements, ensuring that preservation is an equal function with acquisition and access. To achieve the second level of practice, the collection would need to write a preservation policy. With a clear preservation policy in place, decisions are made easier. References to examples of preservation policies are cited in the text. With regards to 'Handling', basic practice is to handle material appropriately in the first place. Good handling practice in the reading room and in storage areas is emphasised. To achieve the highest standard, the collection simply needs to initiate a rolling programme of staff training for handling material, and ensure reading room rules are enforced. Some headings are more comprehensive than others; for example, storage 17

includes seven subheadings from storage in its widest context to storage of single items. Other headings may only include two subheadings.

Why do we need this benchmark model? Firstly, collection care assessments are now viewed as the foundation for strategic preservation funding. The Heritage Lottery Fund is likely to recommend that the basic level of achievement be required for conservation applications. On a national level, the benchmark model will help to identify the common elements of management required for the long-term preservation of library, archive and museum collections. The information will, via ite:source, inform lead organizations such as the NPO and DCMS and other funding agencies, to help develop long-term strategies. On an institutional level, the benchmark model is an effective tool for raising awareness of preservation issues within a library or archive, regardless of the size or scope of the collection. It provides a mechanism for improving practice in evaluating the quality of the practice. There is a third, important element on an institutional level, which is often overlooked. It is that the benchmark model can provide a feel-good factor. Too often people are anxious about whether they are doing a good job or not, or whether their preservation policies are working and are effective. By measuring the progress and effectiveness of those preservation policies, you can feel assured about the progress and the direction of the preservation programme. To make preservation economically stable we need to share skill resources where possible, and to achieve this we need to be clear about what we are trying to attain. The benchmark model is a very useful tool to develop a coherent approach.

The author of this paper wishes to acknowledge Helen Lindsay as co-author of Benchmarks in Collections Care for UK libraries? and to Peter Winsor who first developed the concept of benchmarking in Levels of Collection Care: A selfassessment checklist for UK museums10.

9

Bell, Nancy and Lindsay, Helen, Benchmarks in Collections Care for UK Libraries. London: Library and Information Commission, 2000. ISBN 1 902394 27 5 10 Winsor, Peter, Levels of Collection Care: A self-assessment checklist for UK museums. London: Museums and Galleries Commission, 1998.

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Strategies affecting museums in Scotland and their impact on collections care Jane Robinson

Introduction This paper explores strategies that affect collections care in museums in Scotland, by looking back at some that have contributed to the current situation and by looking forward to how recent changes of policy might influence the future.

UK Agenda The goals for museums, libraries and archives are set by government agendas which provide the policy framework for the sector. i?e:source: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, is currently developing policy and strategy. In /te:source's manifesto11 Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, states that:

'ite:source will provide the strategic direction necessary to enable the collections and services that define our sector to touch the lives of everyone

At its

heart is a strong commitment to improve the experience of those who currently use our museums, libraries and archives, and those who will do so in the future.'

This shows clearly the current emphasis is on people and the use of collections. It also underlines that strategy has changed from museums primarily in the role of custodians of heritage, to museums as public service providers. Conservation, collections care and stewardship are no longer the main priority. Those for whom collection care is their priority have a responsibility to ensure their role fits this overall strategy so that collections are preserved for future generations.

Scotland's National Cultural Strategy Scotland shares the UK-wide priorities of education, life-long learning, access and social inclusion, but the devolution from central government to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 put cultural affairs (for which it has devolved powers) high on the 11

Manifesto. London: Resource, 2000

19

agenda. It was perhaps inevitable, given the need to demonstrate a 'Scottish difference' that soon after devolution, the new Scottish Parliament announced it was to prepare a national cultural strategy.

The Scottish Executive published Creating our future....minding

our past, the

national cultural strategy'2 in August 2000 after a year of consultation. Its political importance was demonstrated by the then First Minister for Scotland, Donald Dewar, returning from heart surgery to launch it.

The strategic objectives of Scotland's national cultural strategy are: 1. promoting creativity, the arts and other cultural activity 2. celebrating Scotland's cultural heritage in its full diversity 3. realisating culture's potential contribution to education, promoting inclusion and enhancing people's quality of life 4. assuring an effective national support framework for culture.

Coming from the Scottish Executive and with ministerial support, the national cultural strategy is expected to strongly influence how the sector operates. It is expected to be implemented by, amongst others, the directly funded national museums, galleries, library, archives and Historic Scotland, and the part-funded agencies such as the Scottish Museums Council (SMC)13.

Conservation is an overall aim of the strategy. A key action point (under Strategic Objective 2) is 'to conserve, present and promote interest in and knowledge of Scotland's history and cultural heritage'. To achieve this, the strategy states that the Scottish Executive will:

12

Creating our future....minding our past, the national cultural strategy. Scottish Executive, 2000.

13

SMC is a membership organisation, like the other area museum councils in the U.K. SMC has a

remit to support the non-national museums and galleries in Scotland. Approximately 73% of its funding is from central Government via the Scottish Executive. SMC provides grants, advice and support services to its member museums across Scotland. There are approximately 320 member museums, none of which are national institutions. Many member museums are small independent trusts which do not have conservators or professional curators on the staff.

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•

initiate a national audit of collections in the museums and galleries, beginning with the industrial museums

•

support development of education services, including the production of digital and other education resources in museums, galleries and sites in the care of Historic Scotland

•

review the statutory framework relevant to the museums and galleries and consider the case for a comprehensive national framework

•

increase access to collections by means of ICT, including securing the future of SCRAN.14

Scottish Differences To understand what the national cultural strategy and other strategies mean for Scotland's museums requires an understanding of how their context differs from that of England. The Scottish Executive supports museums with £20 million, 96% of which goes to the national museums and galleries, and 4% to the non-nationals via SMC. To date in Scotland there has been no drive to bring museums, libraries and archives into one sector. The remit for i?e:source is for England. In Scotland, devolved powers mean different relationships between national agencies and institutions, which in turn result in different roles and remits for museums and conservation. This affects SMC, whose national strategic remit contrasts with that of the English AMCs and which means that regional strategies are less important than in England - a problem for a country that has approximately the same footprint as England but only a tenth of the population. In Scotland conservation has more support than in England because of the existence of Historic Scotland's Scottish Conservation Bureau which administers the (formerly MGC) Register of Conservators (instead of UKIC) and supports conservation through its internship programme. Scottish museums have low professional capacity generally, and strategies for collections care must take this into account. 14

SCRAN is the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network, and operates a digitising project to produce education resources from collection items in museums and other bodies. In its five years of operation, SCRAN has built up a large collection of digitised images of objects. The project generates some conservation work to improve the condition of objects before digitisation, but the preservation goal is to maintain the digital images.

21

The political and physical geography of Scotland contribute to the museums context. The local government reorganisation of 1996 resulted in single unitary authorities throughout Scotland. It broke up larger urban districts in the central belt into smaller ones and created huge single-tier regions in rural areas.

This means that rural

museum services that were formerly administered by several district authorities are now single services, and the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow (with a visitor catchment area of approximately half Scotland and visitor figures twice those of the National Galleries of Scotland) is funded solely by Glasgow City Council.

The National Audit The national cultural strategy identified the need for an audit of Scotland's collections and SMC have been commissioned to undertake it. The National Audit will identify collections, their significance and who owns them. It will examine collections, buildings, stewardship and access and will include all national and non-national museums, as well as registered and non-registered collections. The audit draws on other schemes, for example DOMUS and the museums registration scheme, and is informed by the ICCROM performance indicators for preventive conservation as well as the mapping projects of the English AMC's. The National Audit is to be carried out within a year and it will undoubtedly inform future strategies. The Ramer Report In 1989 an audit of the conservation needs of Scotland's museums was undertaken. Commissioned by SMC and undertaken by Brian Ramer, the report15 informed strategies in preventive conservation and collections care in the 1990's, which were taken up by the Museums and Galleries Commission, and by SMC. The Ramer Report put preventive conservation and collections care to the fore, instead of, as formerly, remedial conservation. The report made the following recommendations:

•

Management policies and conservation plans which provide a framework for establishing and maintaining standards of collections care.

•

More bursaries for traineeships to increase the availability of training for conservators.

22

•

Establishment ofjointly-funded regional conservation services.

•

Use of museum staff other than conservators to undertake unsupervised work is inappropriate except on agreed tasks.

•

There is a need to develop standards and run short training programmes in collection care.

•

There is a need to increase the percentage of funds assigned to conservation.

The Ramer report was successful in promoting recognition of the importance of planning, the setting up of internship programmes, and the development of standards. It was less successful in promoting jointly funded posts as the 1990s generally saw fewer conservation posts in museums.

Scottish Museums Council strategies for conservation and collections care SMC's strategy for conservation and collections is informed by the recently published Conservation and Collections Care Policy.16 SMC continues to employ conservators and deliver conservation services to member museums because of the low capacity in Scottish museums in the areas of conservation and collections care. The policy ensures SMC's own conservation service 'practises what it preaches' by setting an example in terms of standards, and quality is monitored using qualitative performance indicators. Collections care advice is given in the context of the museum concerned. It is delivered using a range of methods. These include written resources (aimed at museums that have no professional staff), one-to-one coaching, and training. These all have the aim of improving decision making and management skills.

The Condition Assessment Tool A goal of SMC's conservation service is to improve the understanding of condition amongst non-conservators, and to assist conservators to survey systematically. SMC is currently developing a database that museums can adopt and use for condition assessment, called the Condition Assessment Tool (CAT). The CAT will guide people not familiar with condition recording to move from describing it as just 'good ' or 'bad' to using a range of condition terms. These include recognising the difference between past damage and future instability; effects of location and environment and 15

Ramer, Brian. A Conservation Survey of Museum Collections in Scotland. HMSO: 1989.

23

physical and chemical protection from packing and mounting. The assessment process will lead to identification of appropriate actions. The CAT is meant to be a very basic tool, and'one that could be given to museums to use, with instructions. An aim is to raise awareness of collection condition generally, especially when the CAT is used by non-conservators undertaking primary level assessments. Conservators can use the more detailed assessment at the second level. It should be noted that the CAT is not for SMC to collect data about museums but is genuinely a tool for others to adapt and use.

What next? This paper has ranged from national strategies to the SMC's own, at the grassroots, and raises the question 'what next?'

If access is a priority, conservation is likely to become more exhibition-led, which puts remedial conservation back in centre-stage and preventive conservation in the wings. Digitising images, open-access stores, and more loans should mean more interventive conservation to prepare objects. These provide opportunities for conservators to work in different, but exciting, ways.

For collection care, object preservation regimes i.e. making decisions about how an object will be used according to its needs and usability, need to be implemented for museum collections, as they seem already to be for those in libraries and archives. Also needed are documentation systems that bring together condition monitoring and the management of condition and use. This requires everyone in museums understanding both the destiny of objects and the meaning of condition and using the information to inform everyday decisions. Survey tools such as the CAT have an important role to play. Finally, standards such as the Levels of Collection Care11 need to be adapted to take the full spectrum of museums into account. To include some of the small voluntary museums with which SMC works requires a category of 'aiming for basic practice.'

16

Available on SMC's website: http://www.scottishmuseums.org.uk Winsor, Peter, Levels of Collection Care: A self-assessment checklist for UK museums. London: Museums and Galleries Commission, 1998. 17

24

An introduction to the NPO Preservation Assessment Survey Helen Forde This part of the day's programme continues the theme that preservation supports access, and the following are going to give brief introductions to the methodology developed for assessing preservation needs in libraries and archives:

Alison Walker, NPO, on how the system works for libraries Steven Jones, PRO, on how the system works for archives Julia Foster, NPO, on the software which has been developed and the reports which can be generated once the information has been fed into the database.

The presentations are all to do with finding out where our preservation priorities lie in order to define which parts of the written cultural heritage can be safely given to the public for use, and which cannot. They are not detailed conservation surveys dictating particular courses of action, but sampling methodologies enabling priorities to be drawn up. Once these are clear, at whatever level, strategies can be developed to fund improvements in the condition of the proportion at risk, thus opening up access. Without this information, resources continue to be misdirected and expensive projects are undertaken without good rationales behind them.

The information gained will be valuable at both local and national level; at the local institutional or even, perhaps, regional basis it will help to determine priorities and to develop strategies for preservation activities. It will indicate

• what percentage of any collection, or series of collections is currently usable • what percentage might be at slight risk • what percentage should not be used before it has had remedial treatment

At the national level it will provide a comparative tool to ensure that scarce resources are directed to the area most in need. Until now it has not been possible to compare the needs of one institution or region against those of another since condition assessments were undertaken using different methodologies. National priorities have therefore been hard to determine, feeding a perception that funding goes to those who

25

shout loudest, while some cultural written heritage is disappearing fast due to the inability of the custodians to estimate the degree of damage. The advantage of what is being proposed today is that everyone can use the same methods of sampling.

In 1995 a major initiative was taken, funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre, to look at the possibility of drawing up such a methodology to be used by all libraries and archives18. Today the first part of that vision is being realised with the launch of the twin methodologies. The success of the second part, involving providing the data, is up to the archives and libraries themselves and it is consequently very important that you leave this seminar with a clear idea of what is being proposed and the advantages which such collaborative action will bring.

However, even before it has begun properly, the programme has spawned a number of benefits -

• the Heritage Lottery Fund has already expressed interest in using the results • conservators, librarians, archivists, ICT specialists and preservation managers have worked together very productively towards a common aim • international interest has been sparked by discussion with Dutch colleagues who have developed a comparable methodology for the Rijksarchief in the Netherlands - a system which demonstrated the accuracy of random sampling in this context and to which the UK methodologies are sufficiently close for comparison to take place once we have adequate data. The Dutch have also worked with the Hungarian National Archives to develop the methodology for their own purposes so there is a real prospect of some interesting and comparable international data emerging in time.

Why two methodologies? It was realised at an early stage that not all the techniques and assumptions are identical in the distinct library and archive situations.

18

Eden, Paul et al. A Model for Assessing Preservation Needs in Libraries. British Library Research and Innovation Report 125. London: British Library 1998

26

Separate, but complementary, techniques were therefore developed as mixed collections make that essential for many organisations. In practice, the two methodologies have drawn closer and closer together as the authors have tried to reduce the complications and iron out the wrinkles. The next six months or so will see a further elucidation of points which are unclear following the comments we hope to get from all those present when they undertake sampling in their own collections.

It cannot be emphasised enough that the success of this scheme is dependent on the use made of it by other organisations than the BL and the PRO, both of which have undertaken pilot assessments. The major attractions of the methodologies include the facts that:

• They are not time-consuming, even for the largest collections: the Dutch undertook a global survey of their entire archive of c 150 kilometres of shelving in 2 days. • They can be applied equally to global and discrete collections: both large and small collections have been tested at the BL with equally satisfactory results. • They have been tested: testing is more advanced for the libraries than for archives but in essence testing one often throws up queries on the other. • Workshops will be held to explain the methodologies: one has already been held at the PRO for archivists, librarians and conservators; another is scheduled for 2001 and the Society of Archivists has expressed an interest in running some training days. More importantly, an additional post in the NPO will make it possible to draw up a schedule to develop, support and ensure a wide spread of additional sessions. It is fully recognised that it is not possible to extend this type of activity without such support and backup, let alone the capacity to feed the information gathered into the data base and produce the type of national reports which are required. • The data will generate reports which indicate optimum solutions: Julia will explain the capacity of the software which has been developed but

27

once survey data has been entered a report can be generated which will indicate to the librarian, archivist or conservator - or, even more importantly, to whoever controls the purse strings in an organisation - what the benefits would be of adopting a particular strategy to improve the preservation status of the collection in question. • Last but not least, the surveys will provide, collectively, the quantity and quality of data required by government, funding bodies and organisations themselves to produce a clear picture of the present condition of the written heritage of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Much preliminary work has been done to get this far as you are about to hear. The two project teams, and those who have been putting most work into the methodologies, Alison, Steven and Julia, are greatly looking forward to working with you and others to take this initiative forward. This will demonstrate that the UK is taking a pro-active line in establishing the facts, and it will have tangible benefits for us all.

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How the Preservation Assessment Survey methodology works for libraries Alison Walker My task for the next few minutes is to give you a more detailed explanation of what the Preservation Assessment Survey (PAS) is how it started, how it works, and what it can do for you. I will focus particularly on its use in libraries, since Steven will be telling you all about how it can be used in archives. Perhaps, though, we are being too restrictive in talking about 'libraries' and 'archives', since the survey method can also be used to assess library and archive materials in museums (although it does not extend to full coverage of museum objects.) Indeed, the recognition of the need for a partner survey for archives, and the work we have done in developing it, increasingly led us to see that the domains are best served by a method which encompasses both libraries and archives. The PAS can thus be used by institutions that have a wide range of types of materials in their collections.

A brief history It all started in 1995. The NPO conference that year, entitled Piecing together the Jigsaw, focused attention on the need for a standard method for assessing preservation need in libraries and archives as a fundamental step towards the development of national preservation policies and strategies19. BLRIC funded a 15-month project to develop such a method. The report distilled the experience and knowledge of an eminent team of researchers and advisers, several of whom are here today. However, when it was published, it had not yet been subject to full-scale testing, and it was without the database structure which would be crucial to its operation. These tasks were taken on by the NPO. We enlisted the support of friends and volunteers, and put in place a series of pilot surveys, using the method defined in the report. This was an extremely useful exercise for it showed firstly, that it did work, and that it was easy to understand and put into practice. However it also showed where more explanation was needed, and where the development of the database entailed changes to the

19

Piecing together the jigsaw: the framework for a national preservation strategy for libraries and archives. Proceedings of the National Preservation Office conference, 18-20 September 1995, York. Organised by the National Preservation Office. London: National Preservation Office, 1997.

29

original. We are now at the stage where we are confident it represents a tool that is ready to put into large-scale use.

The pilot studies were carried out in the first half of 1999, and our aim was to test the method in a variety of circumstances: large collections and small, rare books and lending collections, homogeneous and disparate collections, different types of buildings. We also wanted to try out different mixes of staff: librarians, archivists, students, and conservators. We collated the time spent on each survey, and the average time per item. The results varied enormously, but this allowed us to see what combination of professional skills was needed to produce the most effective survey. The best combination looks like a librarian or archivist, a conservator, plus a student 'runner', and the process is much more effective if concentrated over a short period of time. While in theory the survey could be spread over several weeks, doing a little at a time, our experience showed that this took far longer overall. The pilot studies were an essential step in moving towards a structure for the method.

How does PAS work? From each collection to be surveyed, 400 items are selected for examination. 400 items, from a collection of any size will give results that are valid, +/- 5%, 95% of the time. This is a proposition which many people have found difficult. How could 400 items give a picture of a collection of several million items? For the mathematics which support the sample size, I refer you to the original research report, Appendix F, Notes on sampling20, which sets out an equation proving the point. Having read and absorbed this, you are required to make a suspension of disbelief, and proceed with your survey. The experience of those who have done surveys confirms that the sample is indeed representative of the whole collection. This is also confirmed by the experience of the Rijksarchief, which Steven will mention21. They undertook repeat surveys with a sample of only 150 items, and found that the results matched very well, and were certainly within the +/- 5% tolerance.

Eden, Paul et al. A Model for Assessing Preservation Needs in Libraries. British Library Research and Innovation Report 125. London: British Library 1998. 21 See pps 34-38.

30

A simple random sample is the best option statistically for it allows each item an equal chance of being selected. To do this you would need a sampling frame, normally a complete catalogue in which every item is entered without duplication, and a means of generating random entries from that catalogue. None of the pilot institutions had such a catalogue; it may be a rare institution that does. However, it is possible that individual parts of a whole institution's collection could be sampled this way. It remains to be tried, and if anyone here today would like to volunteer their collection for testing, please contact the NPO.

If a simple, random sample is not possible, a systematic sample can be chosen - and in practice, this has been the most common approach. Items are selected at determined intervals. For example, with a collection occupying 10,000 shelves, one would take an item from every 25th shelf, starting with a shelf selected at random between 1 and 25.

There is a further possibility, required where parts of the survey population have particular characteristics, for example different media, buildings or use characteristics. This is a stratified sample, which looks at the parts of the population in proportion to their occurrence. Again, this has not been tested because none of the pilots offered these characteristics.

For each item selected (an item will normally be a volume, for a library, or in archive terms, a production unit), a form, being two sides of A4, is filled in. The first side asks questions relating to the preservation environment of the item: How is it accessed? How heavily is it used? Is the accommodation in which it is kept appropriate and likely to promote its long-term preservation? What is its condition, its value and its importance? Part two records the artefact type and the nature and degree of damage the item displays.

The information from the survey sheets is keyboarded into a database, and each response is scored according to the implication it has for the preservation of the item. For example, low use will have a low score and high use a high score, poor condition will have a high score, and good condition a low score. The maximum score is 100, but to achieve this, the item would have to be in very poor condition, unique, and stored in a very poor environment. In the pilot studies it was very rare to find a score 31

over 80. These scores are then grouped in five equal bands and each item rated, in these bands, between 1 and 5 in priority for preservation. Band 1 is very low priority, and band 5 very high. For each institution, reports are generated to show the totals and percentages in each band.

The database is in Microsoft Access, a widely available software package, which can be used to extract reports based on the data. You can ask it many questions, and we have pre-programmed some which have proved most useful during the pilot period. The reports will let institutions decide how they can improve the preservation rating of their collections by taking certain steps such as putting in automatic fire detection, or improving security. Examination of the types of damage found indicates what conservation measures need to be taken and what skills are likely to be needed. The software also allows us to create a composite database from a number of institutions, and will in the future allow us to define and quantify particular preservation problems. For example, the data already collected has been used to obtain an estimate of the percentage of items on brittle paper, in order to assess the scope for mass deacidification treatments.

Uses for PAS This type of survey can really work for the institution that undertakes it. Preservation cannot be planned properly without good and verifiable knowledge of the state of the collections. A 'one-off survey of the whole collection is a starting point, but you can learn a lot more by then surveying distinct parts of the collection, and seeing how they relate to the whole picture. For example, it could tell you that material on one site is very significantly worse than another, and measure the improvement that would occur if you improved environmental conditions. It could tell you that certain types of material are in particularly poor condition. Repeat surveys at regular intervals can tell you whether things are improving. Indeed you may be required to provide a performance measure for preservation activity, and a survey provides a measure more telling and more sophisticated than a simple count of 'items fixed'. The British Library is currently using information from this survey method to report on its required performance measures i.e. percentage of items housed in appropriate conditions, and percentage of items in stable condition.

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Regular funding tends to be linked to performance, but applications for project funding also require justification and should be based on data, which allows the funder to make meaningful comparison between projects. It has been mentioned that the Heritage Lottery Fund has shown considerable interest in this survey method, and projects that require a preservation survey may be required to use this standard method.

Developing PAS If this survey process is to fulfil its potential, participation from libraries and archives is essential. The more data is accumulated, the more interesting and reliable is the information we can derive from it. The more information we have on the state of preservation of the nation's collections, the firmer ground we are on when applying and lobbying for funding for collaborative preservation activities.

The NPO and the PRO will be supporting the use of the survey. Libraries and archives that wish to do a survey will be offered a manual, forms to complete, and a blank database with report facilities to manage the data. The data, which they return to the NPO, will build the national picture.

We held our first workshop for potential users last week, and found it invaluable. The feedback we receive helps us to clarify the guidance, and we can provide immediate answers to questions relating to particular institutions' circumstances. The participants were full of wonderful ideas. We now have the prospect of using the method on a collection of herbaria. In fact the extension of the method to different media looks like a major area of expansion, and one which again is beginning to take us beyond the library and archive domains.

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How the Preservation Assessment Survey methodology works for archives Steven Jones I am Head of Archive Inspection Services at the Public Record Office and also the Project Officer for the archival side of this Preservation Assessment Survey. My paper concentrates on two themes: the development of the archives element of the project (Alison having just described to you the Libraries side), and the next steps for the project i.e. what will be happening after today, once we have grabbed your attention and the PAS model is out there in the real world.

Development of the archives element As Helen has mentioned, the original project team recognised that work would need to be carried out to establish how far the survey model could be used in archival collections. Archive and library collections, while sharing many similarities, are not identical: media, levels of demand, types of damage, and differing conditions of storage and arrangement are just some of the areas which can differ between these two domains.

To begin with I will read one of the objectives from the original BLRIC (British Library Research and Innovation Committee) report22. This is the objective that I was given to address in 1998: " . . . to develop a model, consisting of survey methodology and questionnaire, which could be used to provide quantifiable and comparable data on the preservation needs of archival collections, based on a sample of items in those collections." The key words here are "quantifiable" - one must be able to show what proportion of a collection is in a particular condition, and "comparable" - there would be little point devising an archive model unless the data it helped to create were fully comparable with that gathered using the libraries model. Essentially, I was to follow the recommendations of the Project Board, and assess various elements of the Library

22

Eden, Paul et al. A Model for Assessing Preservation Needs in Libraries. British Library Research and Innovation Report 125. London: British Library 1998.

34

survey model, to establish the extent to which they could be adapted and applied usefully to archival collections. The work focused on four key themes: •

The structure of the model: in other words the questionnaire-and-samplingmethod approach.

•

The sampling method itself: the key issue was to consider whether or not the unique nature of archival materials rendered the random sampling method for Libraries inadequate for archives.

•

The questionnaire and questionnaire guidelines: the questionnaire was clearly tailored towards use with library materials, but would it be possible to devise a comparable questionnaire for use in archives?

•

Specific issues which I was directed to consider. For example, the peculiar nature of demand for archival items, and the concept of'importance' - how could one assess the special 'importance' of an archival item when surely all archives are unique and therefore inherently 'important'?

My first thoughts were that it would be near impossible to devise such a comparable and compatible model for assessing archives.

I was fortunate at the start in that staff at the Rijksarchief in the Netherlands had recently completed rigorous testing of their own new in-house archival assessment model. Their model seemed to have aims in common with ours, and set about achieving them in ways similar to our own BLRIC-supported project. This also gave me the attractive possibility of not having to reinvent the wheel to achieve my own project aims. I learnt a lot from the Rijksarchief demonstration of their surveying model about the reliability and convenience of random sampling for archives, and was able to adapt the sampling element of their methodology for our own needs. The Project Board kept in touch with my work, and through consultation, collaboration, and road-testing we have now arrived at a model for making randomsample assessment in archives which contains elements parallel to those in the libraries model i.e. near-identical methods of measuring collections, sampling from them, assessing them, and processing the results whether for libraries, archives or mixed media collections. These have now been agreed upon by the Project Board. We

35

are confident that what we now have is sound both from a statistical point of view, and from a practical point of view. As you will see when you receive copies of the survey methodology papers, two formerly distinct elements - for libraries and archives - have now been brought together in a single unified methodology. The benefits of being able to carry out full and meaningful comparisons of data between archives and archives, archives and libraries, and libraries and libraries, are clear. This close parity of results allows for a clear picture of the state of our written heritage to be built. Some of you may be wondering whether this is really a fully unified methodology. Of course there are some variations in the details, but these are minor variations. Equally, different approaches will be required dependent on the type of collection one wishes to survey. However this is more a case of getting the appropriate team and preparations together (librarians surveying library materials, for example) than a case of differing methodologies. The next steps I appreciate that I have only been able to give a very brief overview of the project and the resulting methodology here today. However I hope that between the four of us we will at least have given you a clear idea of the sorts of issues we have considered, and of the product which we have now developed.

To date the feedback we have received concerning this project has been positive and enthusiastic. This gives us confidence to move on with the launch and rollout of the model to the wider world. Our first step is this event here today where we are publicising the model to a wide and varied audience. We hope of course that all of you will leave here wanting to apply the model to your own collections. However we do need to carry out a campaign of publicity beyond this event to ensure that the widest possible adoption of the model is achieved. Journals, newsletters, and web sites will serve as vehicles to promote this model. We will, as Helen Forde said, stage practical workshops (as we have done already) to work through the model with those who wish to adopt it but perhaps want to learn more about it beforehand. Doubtless some of you will hear similar presentations from us at other meetings and venues around the country over the next year and more.

36

There will of course be a need to fine-tune the model. It would not be fair to call our latest version of the papers the 'final version' as we are bound to learn from the practical experiences of those who make use of the model. We already know that many institutions are waiting to adopt this model including the Public Record Office and the British Library of course, but also a variety of libraries, archives and other institutions around the UK. As adoption and use of the model gather pace, there will be a need to devote time to the co-ordination of this use, and to the further development of the model. The results of surveys carried out using the model will need to be analysed and reported on. We are currently investigating the possibilities of establishing a new joint-funded post with this specific remit.

We hope of course that the key political and financial players will see the model as a reliable means of getting accurate and meaningful data on collection conditions. /te:source is developing its strategies for libraries and archives, and we want to be sure that this model supports and informs this work. Similarly we hope that funding bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund will welcome a model which provides comparable collection data which can be weighed up when assessing funding bids.

Finally the model can support the work which Nancy Bell spoke about earlier today i.e. measuring performance against performance indicators and benchmarks. These will become ever more common in archives and libraries, and this model can supply data which can indicate performance in various areas of preservation work and provision. As survey results begin to be fed back to the NPO, we can begin to build up a true national picture of preservation conditions. This will support the NPO's core objective of developing a national strategy for preservation. The data can be broken down for closer analysis and comparison of different geographic regions, or institutions, or of the whole library domain with the whole archival domain. The data will be flexible, thanks to the database application that Julia Foster has developed. A final development which I would just like to flag is that we hope soon to begin to liaise with representatives of the museums world, to establish the extent to which this model can be applied to museum collections. We have already received some enthusiastic correspondence on this theme, and hope to develop a mutually beneficial relationship across the three domains very shortly.

37

Conclusion My final word before I hand over to Julia is actually almost a quote from Helen Forde's opening comments. It is that "the success of this scheme is dependent on the use made of it by organisations other than the BL and the PRO". It is not much use if we are the only ones using the model. That will not give us much of a 'national picture' of preservation. We need, and I stress that this is 'we' as the libraries, archives and museums domains rather than we four giving this presentation - we need you to adopt and use this model in your own contexts, in your own institutions. Only with the data which you create can we begin to build up a true national picture, and begin to make real progress on getting on with the promotion and implementation of good preservation practice.

Julia Foster will demonstrate the part of the model that we have not touched on properly as yet, i.e. the database application which will be used to process and analyse the raw data created in assessment surveys.

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The Preservation Assessment Survey software application and generation of reports Julia Foster N.B. This part of the presentation relied on an active demonstration of the Microsoft Access database, which has been developed to process data, created using the Preservation Assessment Methodology. Simple transcription of this part of proceedings would therefore not reflect the content of the presentation given. The main points concerning the development and functions of the database can, however, be summarised as follows:

What will users receive, and what will they do with it? •

Users will receive the database on disk or via e-mail.

•

Users only require a computer capable of running Microsoft Access or Excel.

•

Users will need to enter the data recorded on their 400 assessment forms.

What does the database do? •

The database structure reflects the various tick-boxes found on the assessment questionnaires.

•

Data is entered from the sheets directly into a pre-prepared database form.

•

Underlying these forms is a scoring scheme that calculates a 'preservation priority band' for each item, and for the sample population as a whole.

•

These scores and bands are presented as graphic reports.

•

The reports are very simple to generate, with minimal input from the user.

What sorts of reports are generated? •

The user can generate a report indicating the percentages of the collection which fall into each of the preservation priority bands.

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The user can also create "What if?" reports: these indicate the shift in results, which would occur if collection conditions were to change. For example, a report answering "What if we installed proper environmental control systems?" would show how the conditions of collections might improve.

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Re:source and the stewardship agenda Neville Mackay Good afternoon everybody. I am delighted to be here. It is an important event for you in the profession, but also for us in i?e:source, because it presents the first opportunity that we have had to talk to you about our work. Today I would like to cover three topics:

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Whyi?e:source was created

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To set out the agenda of i?e:source

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To assess what the i?e:source stewardship strategy means to you in the conservation and collections profession.

I do not propose to spend more than a couple of minutes on the first item, because most of you will already know the reasons why we were brought into existence. However I would like to reiterate a couple of points, because the reasons why we were created have left an indelible mark on the type of organisation we are, and the sort of work that we undertake.

Why i?e:source was created The Government first began the process of reviewing the various structures and policies that it had inherited within the cultural sector back in 1998, and there were three main reasons which led them to conclude that a new strategic body for museums, libraries and archives was necessary. The first is simply the fact that the world around us is changing dramatically, and these changes create pressures, which our sector has to respond to in order to survive. I will not go through them in great detail, but you will be familiar with the implications of many of these. We have got technological change in the shape of the Internet, which is creating all sorts of professional questions about how we respond to collections management issues, how we can pull together collections and how we can develop new sorts of services that perhaps five years ago had not even been imagined, for example new multi-media services. We are in an environment where there are competing economic attractions.

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People do not have to go and spend their time in a museum, library or archive but can spend time in other facilities and venues. We have got to be competitive in the way in which we market ourselves and the way in which we put ourselves across to the population at large. This reflects social changes and changing public expectations about the quality of public services. Underpinning all of that are the sort of political forces that are at work, including the emphasis on education, the thrust towards joined-up government and the thrust towards modernising public services. Those forces create the sort of background context against which we all have to operate, irrespective of our particular professional specialism. The key issue is how are museums, libraries and archives going to respond to these challenges? How are they going to deal with them constructively, and be on top of them, rather than be led by them? Part of the answer was to establish i?e:source as an organisation with a remit specifically focused on that task.

The second reason for the setting up of i?e:source was concern about the effectiveness or appropriateness of the existing sectoral quangos (the Museums and Galleries Commission and the Libraries and Information Commission) for managing that sort of change agenda which I mentioned. Some of the concerns that the Government picked up on included:

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Silo mentalities, i.e. the fact that people think vertically rather than horizontally. It was felt that people were thinking within professional boxes and that this needed to be changed so that people could begin to make those horizontal linkages between different types of professions and different areas of expertise.

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Inflexible organisational legacies, i.e. that, for example, the Museums and Galleries Commission (MGC) had always done things in a certain way and would therefore continue to do things in that way.

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Not enough emphasis on the public. This is really key. Part of our philosophy is that we are putting the public first. We must always remember that collection services are there to serve the public, and are not there necessarily to serve professional interests.

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The consequence of all of this is a lack of political clout amongst those existing organisations. In the context of the Library and Information Commission (LIC),

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there was a lack of critical mass as it was a small body, having had only four members of staff until a year ago. •

Poor links between the MGC the LIC and some of the national institutions within the sector.

Thus Re'.source was created to try and overcome some of these problems. It was given a different remit so that these roadblocks could be turned into opportunities.

The third reason i?e:source was brought into existence is simply a fundamental belief in the advantages of developing much closer links between museums, libraries and archives; a belief which I hope has been reinforced by much of what you have heard earlier on today. Of course the most radical element of that mentality, of that approach, was to create a body specifically charged with exploiting these synergies and linkages, and that body was i?e:source. The rationale there is straightforward. There are substantive common agendas, shared by museums, libraries and archives and it is much more effective to tackle these in an integrated way rather than for each sector to go off in its own direction and at its own pace. If you think about what those big issues are, it makes you realise the extent to which they are shared across the three domains. Collections care issues are a classic example, as is financial sustainability, staff development and professional training, the application of information technology, the development of partnerships with other agencies and other organisations, and the promotion of physical and virtual access. All of these are largescale issues as far as our sector is concerned. We have to tackle these and respond to them if we are to convince the public and the Government that our services have a value to society and have a value in enhancing the quality of life of individuals within that society.

The philosophy behind /te:source These arguments about the similarities between the different components of the museums, libraries and archives sector draw upon the similarities that already exist between them. All are built around collections of one type or other; all are involved in the management and conservation of those collections; and all provide members of

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the public with services which draw upon those collections in some way. In many areas, particularly at local level, museums, libraries and archives are already working together in an operational sense, and often are located in the same building. Thus i?e:source was set up as a new organisation with a new remit and a new approach in response to these pressures and issues.

What that has meant is that in many respects we are an atypical body for our type. We have been established for example to promote and encourage change rather than to maintain the status quo, and we are programmed to be radical rather than conservative with a small V . We want to generate ideas and set agendas rather than respond to them. Taken together, what we are trying to do is to make a difference on behalf of members of the public who use the services that we represent and support. If we remain true to this approach and to this philosophy, we should deliver a number of benefits. These will include more political clout for the sector at national, regional and local level; realisation of the financial benefits that that implies; a clearer sense of strategic direction; more clearly identified strategic needs and priorities; a new customer focus approach; and more effective use of resources.

.Resource's agenda We sought to capture some of this in our manifesto23 which we published in June, and which I am sure many of you have read. That sets out our aims and objectives, and identified some of the work that we are intending to carry out during our first year. I am not going to run through that in detail, because you can read it for yourselves, but I do just want to make two points that flow from that document.

The first is that our initial work programme involves a large number of process reviews and quite a lot of strategic mapping. I think this is only to be expected of a new organisation as we take stock of the various legacies that we inherited from our predecessor bodies, and as we look at the extent to which they align with our new strategic objectives. However it is atypical of what our work is going to be like in years two, three, four and five as we move on through time. What I would like to see as we go forward is a shift away from some of these enabling processes which we are 23

Manifesto. London: Resource, 2001.

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engaged in at the moment, towards more action, more delivering, more changing and more doing.

My second point simply relates to our quest for change. Our manifesto identified three principal objectives for .Resource. Promoting change is the first objective, and it underpins all three of those areas. We fundamentally believe in the necessity of change, and feel that without change the sector we represent risks stagnation. It risks perhaps becoming locked into historic patterns of behaviour, locked into outmoded customs and practices, and in consequence risks becoming more marginal to the lives of people who are using these services and who are sustaining them through their taxes. What that means is that maintaining the status quo is not an option for us.

The status quo, if you think about it, has led to a decline in the number of museum visits. Visits have fallen by something like five per cent over the past five years. The status quo has led to stagnation in terms of the number of library books that are borrowed, and it has actually led to a decline in terms of borrowings of certain types of library books, with adult fiction being a classic example. It has led to a huge backlog of capital needs in museums, libraries and archives, and has led to running costs constraints, which all of you will be only too familiar with. It has hindered professional and organisational co-operation, and has led to significant problems for some collections, particularly those collections that serve a regional role rather than simply a local one. Thus, you will realise from this that we are keen on change. However, it is important to remember that change is simply a process and a means to an end. Change for its own sake is not as valid or as positive as change for a purpose. Thus what I want to do for the rest of this presentation is talk about what that purpose is, what it is that we are trying to achieve, and how you as a profession in the community play a part in that.

.Resource's vision Our first task is to develop and deliver a vision of what museum, library and archive services of the future will look like. We have got to ensure that there is 'buy-in' to that vision from Government and from other funders, as well as from professionals and paraprofessionals working within the sector. We are looking to create a new way

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of thinking about our sector, a new way of structuring the sector, and a new way of working within the sector. i?e:source's manifesto has a page headed 'Vision', and there are about two lines of sentiment underneath that. That is not our whole vision for the sector, but is a starting point. It is the tip of what will be a very substantial iceberg. What we are doing now is getting to the phase where we are burying below that rhetoric and identifying what creating a new paradigm or a new way of working within the sector would actually mean. What do we have to change? What are the implications of that change? Who plays a role in that process?

The Distributed National Collection The vision which we are developing, and which we have been discussing internally, but which we have not yet begun to share with our stakeholders and our constituents, is the notion of the Distributed National Collection. This is where all the nation's museum, library and archives' holdings are seen as part of one national collection, but distributed across a large number of institutions, and where that current pattern of distribution need not necessarily be fixed for all time. Thus that model could encompass everything from the collections held within the British Library, or the Public Record Office, through to collections held in large museums, independent museums, and in local library and local history collections.

By developing and refining the concept of the Distributed National Collection we can encourage the sector to think of there being one cultural entity, the national collection, which is held for the benefit of everybody, regardless of who cares for it or their perceived value. All collections have value, but the social and cultural values placed upon them are relative to what and where they are. The concept of the Distributed National Collection could be accepted and adopted inside and outside of the sector. All of the historic collections within our museums, archives and libraries are part of the portable national heritage, and who currently cares for them is to some extent a matter of historical accident. Distinctions between national collections or nonnational collections for example, are distinctions about institutions and governance, not necessarily about quality or importance, and both are relatively judgmental. Consequently public investment in the sector from whatever source should be 45

distributed on the basis of assessments of need, rather than historical precedence, and there should be no reason to confine any one source of expenditure to any one type of institution.

Now, how can I relate that concept of the Distributed National Collection to stewardship and to collections care and to the work that you are carrying out? It will not be lost on you that the concept of the Distributed National Collection is built around the collection itself, that is the collection as a shared national entity. It is therefore axiomatic that those responsible for managing, conserving and developing collections have a large part to play in developing the notion of the Distributed National Collection. I trust that this approach that we are trying to develop illustrates that despite what is said in some quarters, we fully recognise that collections are of fundamental importance to the services that we represent. They provide the basic intellectual capital and the platform on which new products and services are built. We already do much to support collections development and collections care through the Designated Museums Challenge Fund, through purchase grant schemes, the publication of best practice on collections management issues, our work at the Portable Antiquities Project, and through our involvement with international fora like ICCROM. Much of this work is sector-specific. That is perhaps not too surprising when you think about our predecessor bodies and the way in which the sector itself works and is structured. This silo approach is a weakness, and we want to look at ways of exploiting and developing the horizontal linkages between museums, libraries and archives that collectively create and define what we would call a cross-sectoral agenda.

J?e:source's stewardship strategy One of the most important elements of this work is the development of and implementation of a cross-sectoral stewardship strategy for museums, libraries and archives. I should make it clear that for those of you with an interest in definitions, the term 'stewardship' is being used by /?e:source as an umbrella term to cover the whole gamut of professional activities. These range from acquisition and disposal through preservation, conservation and collection care, preservation management, collection management, documentation and cataloguing, environmental management, management of buildings, security of buildings and their contents, use of collections, 46

risk management, and emergency preparedness. I make this point simply because conservation professionals in museums, libraries and archives sometimes have language difficulties because each profession and each sector develops its own terminology. This is a point that was picked up on earlier today, that it that we sometimes appear to be a profession divided by a common language. This is one of the first obstacles that we must remove.

The strategy will build upon a wide range of existing work. It will address fundamental issues such as structural and financial provision for stewardship across the whole of the sector; the management of traditional and digitised materials; the role of surrogate materials; as well as issues concerning the balance between use and preservation. The objectives of the strategy are to inform policy and funding issues at both national and regional level, and to provide a planning and development resource for the sector. It has got to be something that you find useful, that you will refer to, that you will use, and that you will build upon. The strategy will also set out our plan for the strategic direction in which we believe stewardship should develop over the next five years. Furthermore, it will articulate the principles that we believe should underpin good stewardship. It will also propose a common terminology to be applied across all three domains to help deflect or help address this semantic language difficulty which I referred to earlier. It will examine the potential for developing a range of partnerships in order to deliver parts of that agenda.

Aims of the stewardship strategy Why do we need to develop this approach? What is wrong with doing what we have always done in the past? I would like to use one issue or topic, being the issue of access, to illustrate why we feel that this new thinking is necessary. Access is recognised today as being a very important driver for all organisations that provide public services. This is not just the physical access to buildings that house objects and documents, but also intellectual and emotional access to objects and documents and the stories behind them in the tales that they tell. A few years ago a speaker at one conference likened conservators to speech therapists, in that they enable objects to tell their stories. However for the objects to tell us anything of course they have got to remain in existence, which is why this tension between the preservation and access arises. I think we feel that that tension need not necessarily arise, and this really is 47

fundamental to the thinking that we are bringing to this issue. Preservation and access need not be in conflict. They can be held in balance, if we understand and accept the risks involved which will allow better access to collections. Thus in caring for the items that are entrusted to us, we need to consider for example what acceptable levels of damage are. Sustainable use means that both form and function must have regard for preservation, otherwise the information embodied within an object will become a diminishing resource.

However we are not talking about preservation for its own sake, or about access at all costs, but about an interaction between people on the one hand and collections on the other. We are talking about a shared responsibility for care, so that tomorrow's audiences, readers, researchers and visitors will have the same opportunities that we have today. In short, our stewardship strategy aims to show that understanding collections, knowing about the durability and fragility of materials and how they change, adds to knowledge, promotes pleasure and excitement in objects, and adds value to everyone's life. As we move beyond the first year of our existence, I am absolutely certain that Resource will address a whole range of preservation and conservation-related issues. Electronic records, film and video archives, and new multimedia products, all pose new and fresh challenges to our community. I am sure that we will be helping you to identify and tackle these, and our stewardship strategy should provide a framework which makes this possible. It is a framework for managing change and dealing with risk.

Jtersource's future work I would like to conclude by saying that I hope the issues that I have covered in this brief presentation illustrate the approach that we are taking, not only to our work generally but to the bits of our work which you are most interested in. You will have an important role to play in helping to guide us and inform us. I would like you to be critical of us where it is constructive, but I would also like you to be supportive of us where you think that we are doing things right and where you feel that we are moving in the right direction. This year is tied up with establishing ourselves, and with reviewing the inheritance that we acquired from our predecessor organisations. Next year we will be able to move faster and things will begin to take off. The real momentum will come from 2002, as our new funding from the Department of Culture, 48

Media and Sport and from Government kicks in. This should provide us with a very significant increase in our base line budget, and it gives us the wherewithal to back our words with action, and to pass some of the benefits that we are promoting down to organisations and people and practitioners in the sector.

I think it is likely that the investment that we will choose to make with our new resources will cover three areas:

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Firstly, the area of collections development and collections management.

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Secondly, the area of service delivery where we will be looking at new ways of promoting joined-up cross-sectoral services for public benefit.

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Thirdly, the area of strategic working where we will be looking to encourage ways of getting regional organisations and others to make an impact and an input into some of the very significant strategic agendas.

These agendas have an enormous impact in terms of releasing resources for the sector in the longer term. We have to be punching above our weight on these sorts of strategic issues in order to ensure that we can maintain an income flow for the future. At the end of the day, we may not get everything right but I believe that we will get more things right than we will get things wrong. Thank you.

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Summary of the conference proceedings Bill Simpson

It is now my rather sad but very pleasant duty to wind up proceedings. I would like to do so first of all by saying that it has been a terrific day and we have had some superb papers. It has been a coherent and consistent day, which is important. Helen Shenton and Nancy Bell spoke about a range of issues that knitted together well in identifying the issues, and in particular that of standards. Jane Robinson's paper on the crosssectoral issues and how they related to Scotland was interesting as we can learn much from both the Scottish experience and the museum one. Neville MacKay picked up on the cross-sectoral issue as something from which we can all benefit, as we learn from each other's experience and derive wisdom as well as knowledge on the basis of that. Helen Forde, Alison Walker, Steven Jones and Julia Foster gave us an excellent presentation on the Preservation Assessment Survey.

The preservation assessment methodology offers us great hope and a great way forward for the future. It might be a long-term process, but we have to start somewhere. I was delighted to see the enthusiasm with which it is being promoted as well as the commitment that those who are working on it have shown. The only way we can go forward is by working collectively. I am sure despite Neville's best efforts we shall never have the resource centrally to do these things so we will have to work together to make it happen. Hence I was delighted to hear about the Preservation Assessment Survey, and I look forward to working with all of you. As I said this morning, for those of you whose institutions have not yet dipped into your pockets and put some money into the kitty, I would encourage you to go home and do that, or if you can not do it yourselves, encourage your directors to. It is very worthwhile and we look forward to that support.

I was interested this morning when I raised a question about what we should be doing to take all of this forward. I got very learned answers from our three wise people up here, but a colleague from the audience came to me at lunch time and said, "The real answer is, to pay conservators more". The problem is the recruitment of good people.

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We need more good people coming into the sector. There is an issue there that does need to be addressed at some point i.e. the whole question of training, conditions of service, and gradings. Nurses go into their profession very often for low pay but out of a sense of vocation. There are some conservators I am sure who have a great sense of vocation, but they also have the mortgage to pay and the family to feed, and that is another issue we have to address. Hence, it was a very wise, acute observation, and one which we should all perhaps take to heart. We ended with Neville's excellent presentation. We have to recognise it is early days for i?e:source yet, and I was excited by many of the things I heard. It was interesting and very stimulating and we are very grateful to him for giving the time to come along and share his thinking with us.

It would be wrong of me to end without thanking the team at the NPO who have worked so hard to make today possible. I would like especially to thank Belinda Sanderson, who has made it all happen today. Thank you very much.

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