FAIC’s Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) program provides general conservation assessments to small and mid-sized museums. The collections care professionals who perform the assessments often comment on the need for better climate data to allow them to provide accurate advice on temperature and relative humidity needs of the collection. To help museums gather this data, FAIC recently announced its participation in Conserv’s Small Collections Monitoring Program.
Conserv developed this program to pave a path for budget-constrained cultural heritage institutions to embrace preventive conservation. Conserv's mission is to protect the world's cultural heritage and the Small Collections Monitoring Program is a way to move the mission forward while repurposing monitoring equipment that would typically be shelved or discarded. Rather than ending up in a landfill, the equipment is tested and calibrated and then donated to small collecting institutions.
Participants in the 2024 CAP program will be able to request two environmental monitors on an as-available basis, with a total of up to forty museums supported. Conserv will also train collection care staff and provide access to their no-cost environmental data software as part of their program. The data collected will help inform CAP assessors’ recommendations for improved collections care at the site.
Training collections caretakers on environmental monitoring will not only help the assessors receive a more complete picture of the collections environment, it will also equip museum staff with tools they need to make better decisions in the long run.
The CAP program is made possible in part by support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
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