This issue looks at a complex area that impacts on all those who look after collections, namely the establishment of appropriate environmental conditions for their display and storage, in a time of great focus on climate change and the impact of fossil fuels on the planet.
Whilst ‘good’ conditions for many types of material have already been well established and are frequently demanded for collections, as spelt out in such highly influential publications as Garry Thomson's The Museum Environment first published in 1978, the pressures of the rising cost of energy and institutional commitments to reduce carbon emissions are requiring the conservation profession to revisit current standards, to reaffirm them, or to identify under what circumstances they could be adjusted.
IIC has taken a lead in this debate, initiated with the Climate Change and Museum Collections roundtable discussion, which began IIC's series of Dialogues for a New Century and was held during the IIC Congress in London, UK, in 2008. The debate was continued with The Plus/Minus Dilemma: A Way Forward in Environmental Guidelines organized jointly by IIC and the American Institute for Conservation, and held during the latter organization's annual conference in 2010 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. (Transcripts of both can be found under the ‘publications’ section of www.iiconservation.org, with translations of the earlier dialogue into eight languages including Chinese and Japanese.)
Together with ICOM-CC, IIC has now established a working group to advise on the current position around the world on environmental standards and to plot a way forward. Key to this process is providing the opportunity for debate by conservation professionals wordwide. With the ICOM-CC triennial conference in Melbourne, Australia, and the IIC congress in Hong Kong both taking place in September 2014, the publication of this issue of Studies in Conservation is intended to provide updated background information for the plenary session debates on environmental standards which have been scheduled for both conferences. Delegates in Hong Kong will receive a printed version of this issue which includes a translation into Chinese of the titles and abstracts of the three summary papers produced by IIC Council members to inform the debate. Opportunities for those who cannot attend these conferences to contribute to this important debate will also be made available.
In this issue, Secretary-General of IIC Jo Kirby Atkinson provides the historical and scientific background to the present discussion along with an extensive bibliography; Julian Bickersteth, IIC Vice President, reports on the interim findings of the working group; and Sarah Staniforth, IIC President, looks to the future and ponders on likely future trends in this area.
We acknowledge that there is more to learn and understand about the way in which objects (and thus the materials from which they are made) react to changing environments. Much useful research has been undertaken in this area over recent decades, and Studies in Conservation as the principal publication for the dissemination of conservation knowledge has been at the forefront for promulgating this. This issue also includes five important research papers that add to this body of knowledge. At the heart of such research needs to be experiential as well as experimental analysis and reporting. The objects that conservators deal with have experienced a complex range of environments, over many decades and often over centuries. The more we can understand how these objects have reacted, whether favourably or unfavourably, and how ageing of materials affects their response now and in the future, the better we shall be able to make decisions about the preservation of collections for later generations.