We are a bit embarrassed that they are not yet available for public dissemination, but the reality is that until the new standard is released in the UK, as a net borrower of artworks and objects, Australian museums and galleries must wait. We now understand that PAS 198 (the precursor to the new British Standard) is likely to be launched early next year. However there’s nothing easy in this space!
The driver for change has been that current recommended environmental standards for display and storage conditions in museums and galleries rely on significant amounts of energy to keep them constant. Internationally the museum sector is facing a number of challenges, namely: rising energy costs; reduced budgets; and community pressure to be more environmentally sustainable.
These challenges raise two broad questions:
- what are the opportunities/issues around reducing energy use in collection climate control?
- what are the resulting potential impacts on collections (sometimes referred to as the 'preservation equation')?
However the National Gallery in London came out last week with its own view on the issue saying that in fact they are looking to tighten the parameters rather than loosen them to 21°C +/- 1°C in winter and 23°C +/- 1°C in summer and 50% +/- 5 % RH. See their well reasoned argument and indeed a broader background to the issue here.
My strong view is that, although the National Gallery’s old masters may need these very tight parameters, very few other collections do, and that the broad push to get the general standard relaxed must continue.
It’s interesting to see in the same week as the National Gallery’s announcement that the data centre sector is also grappling with the same issues. Data centres use vast amounts of electricity to keep their banks of computers cool.
Apparently these data centres run at 18-21°C to avoid hot spots that might cause the computers to malfunction. Now it has been shown that there is unlikely to be any problem letting computers operate in an environment up to 37°C. Even by relaxing the climate level by 9°C an astonishing $2.16 billion in energy costs would be saved by the sector in the US alone.
Now that is serious money saved and of course serious carbon dioxide emissions too.
Julian Bickersteth
Managing Director
internationalconservationservices
Posts
I am so glad you are bringing this to light. I did extensive research at one said university which houses all the existing records of a mid century modern designer's work. Needless to say the papers were falling and crumbling apart in my hands, and some of the items had suffered mold and mildew (*some even discarded instead of saved over the years) and I was appalled. It seems that many universities or libraries WANT or will ACCEPT donated collections but do not have the temperature control, budget, or help to make sure that these records (or collections, whatever they may be) will exist in ten years.
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