{"id":10559,"date":"2014-06-09T20:58:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T01:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/?p=10559"},"modified":"2014-06-09T20:58:57","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T01:58:57","slug":"aics-42nd-annual-meeting-opening-session-may-29-precaution-proof-and-pragmatism-150-years-of-expert-debate-on-the-museum-environment-by-foekje-boersma-kathle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2014\/06\/09\/aics-42nd-annual-meeting-opening-session-may-29-precaution-proof-and-pragmatism-150-years-of-expert-debate-on-the-museum-environment-by-foekje-boersma-kathle\/","title":{"rendered":"AIC\u2019s 42nd Annual Meeting \u2013 Opening Session, May 29, \u201cPrecaution, proof, and pragmatism: 150 years of expert debate on the museum environment\u201d by Foekje Boersma, Kathleen Dardes, and James Druzik"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foekje Boersma, along with Kathleen Dardes and James Druzik, provided an informative summary of the debate regarding\u00a0environmental standards in their presentation \u201cPrecaution, proof, and pragmatism: 150 years of expert debate on the museum environment.\u201d\u00a0 The presentation began with a historical review, based in part on information obtained from AIC\u2019s Conservation Wiki<\/a>.
\nThe Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Cleveland Museum of Art were the first museums to set specific humidity recommendations, in 1908 and 1915, respectively.\u00a0 It is often stated that the development of environmental standards arose as a by-product of the storage of artworks in salt and coal mines during World War II, so\u00a0I\u00a0was interested to learn of earlier attempts at environmental control.
\nIn 1940, Harold Plenderleith and George Stout said there was not adequate information to fix an \u201cabsolute standard\u201d but suggested 60 \u2013 65% relative humidity, chosen because it was easiest to maintain with stability.\u00a0 Later, Plenderleith, now working with Paul Philippot, prescribed a \u201cregion of security\u201d of 50 \u2013 65% RH.\u00a0 According to Boersma, these early conservators were pragmatic: although a set temperature and RH were specified, a greater emphasis was made on avoiding extremes.\u00a0 The local climate and historical conditions of the objects were also to be taken into account.\u00a0 Garry Thomson, who is often assigned either the credit or blame, depending on whom you ask, for the 50% RH\/70\u00b0 F\u00a0standard, is misinterpreted according to Boersma.\u00a0 He was also pragmatic.\u00a0 Rather than endorsing the 50\/70 rule, he merely predicted the increasing number of museum loans would lead to museums adopting that rigid standard.
\nBoersma attributes the widespread implementation of the 50\/70 rule to the museum building boom in the 1970s.\u00a0 Architects and engineers wanted\u00a0numerical targets, and conservators were happy to specify safe conditions.\u00a0 Sustainability was not much of a concern given cheap energy costs.\u00a0 But already by 1979, CCI was advising seasonal variations with gradual fluctuations.\u00a0 Boersma then skipped ahead to the 1990s and the controversial research of Charles Tumosa and Marion Mecklenburg at MCI, which said that materials aren\u2019t as sensitive as previously thought.
\nToday, the debate on the museum environment has moved from conservators to museum directors and administrators.\u00a0 The Bizot Group, concerned about environmental and economic sustainability, pushed to broaden environmental standards by adopting new Guiding Principles and Interim Guidelines, influenced by those developled by the NMDC (the National Museum Directors\u2019 Council<\/a>). In response, guidelines were published many other groups, such as AIC<\/a>, BSI<\/a>, AICCM<\/a>, and the Doerner Institut<\/a>.
\nIn order to clarify the debate, Boersma divides prevailing views into three categories: precautionary safety, proven safety, and pragmatic risk management.\u00a0 Precautionary safety, embodied by the Doerner Institut\u2019s Munich Position, centers around the belief that \u201cstable is safe.\u201d\u00a0 Not enough research has been done on the response of objects to wider environmental conditions.\u00a0 To eliminate risk, objects should be kept under a narrow set of conditions.\u00a0 Supporters of the proven safety approach acknowledge that actual conditions are wider than 50\/70 because tight standards are impossible to maintain.\u00a0 The proofed fluctuations of 40 \u2013 60% RH and 50 \u2013 70\u02da F are acceptable.\u00a0 Pragmatic risk management reflects ideas of risk assessment developed in the 1990s.\u00a0 Resources should go to the reduction of the biggest risks to collections, which may or may not be climatic fluctuation.
\nIn conclusion, Boersma wonders how conservators can function as a profession given such different views on a central topic.\u00a0 She references her ongoing research as part of GCI\u2019s Managing Collection Environments Initiative<\/a>, which is working to answer questions generated by the debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foekje Boersma, along with Kathleen Dardes and James Druzik, provided an informative summary of the debate regarding\u00a0environmental standards in their presentation \u201cPrecaution, proof, and pragmatism: 150 years of expert debate on the museum environment.\u201d\u00a0 The presentation began with a historical review, based in part on information obtained from AIC\u2019s Conservation Wiki. The Museum of Fine … Continue reading “AIC\u2019s 42nd Annual Meeting \u2013 Opening Session, May 29, \u201cPrecaution, proof, and pragmatism: 150 years of expert debate on the museum environment\u201d by Foekje Boersma, Kathleen Dardes, and James Druzik”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":10236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,25,10,39],"tags":[73,977],"class_list":["post-10559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-collectioncare","category-general-sessions","category-sustainability","tag-aics-42nd-annual-meeting","tag-sustainability-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}