An Assessment of Integrated Pest Management Awareness in Heritage Institutions

ABSTRACT

Integrated pest management (IPM) is implemented in many heritage institutions as a method for reducing pests that pose a threat to cultural heritage, with a growing body of literature discussing attempts to increase the awareness of IPM amongst heritage institutions. Much of this literature focuses on case studies documenting attempts to increase awareness within individual institutions from the perspective of collections care management staff, while the perspectives of the remaining staff in this process have been overlooked. This study investigates, for the first time, IPM awareness of staff from a range of heritage institutions, exploring views from employees who are not directly responsible for or involved in IPM implementation and its day-to-day operation. A survey was used to evaluate participants’ perceptions relating to the components of awareness, defined in this study as ‘knowledge’ and ‘perception’. This was complemented by interviews with collections care professionals that supported the assessment of the successes and challenges related to training staff. Our findings – based on the responses from 52 survey participants – suggest that over a quarter of heritage staff could be unsure of how IPM relates to them, and, even more, may not perceive IPM as part of their responsibility, indicating that further efforts should be dedicated to increasing IPM awareness. These findings have been further supported by statements from eight distinct collections care professionals, who significantly stressed the importance of IPM awareness and demonstrated a clear wish for its expansion, with time and resources being cited as limiting factors.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrated pest management
• IPM
• awareness
• collections care

Acknowledgements

This project has not received funding from external bodies. The authors are grateful to all interview and survey participants that have contributed to this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics

Ethics approval for this research was obtained from the Director of Ethics at the Bartlett School of the Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), University College London. Consent was obtained from all survey participants by including an online consent checklist at the beginning of the survey that would only allow the participant to take part if completed. Consent was obtained from all interview participants by providing an online consent form that was completed before the interview took place.