Letters

Maurice Davies raised an interesting topic in his opinion piece Don’t touch that thermostat dial.

He claims that for years we have been told to do all we can to achieve 50% relative humidity but the news is that we can aim for conditions of 40%–60% relative humidity or even wider.

He explains that you should use relative humidity to control the moisture content of organic materials such as wood and paper and that temperature is not such a big deal.

He admits that a few jet-set conservators (oh, I can but dream) have known these things for the last few years but the grounded professionals are only just gaining access to it.

I say this is nonsense. This information is and always has been available. Garry Thomson argued in The Museum Environment that conditions for non-national museums and museums in non-purpose built buildings should be between 40% and 70% relative humidity, controlling temperature to control relative humidity.
 
His book also has a step-by-step explanation of moisture content and has been available since 1978: how many museum or conservation studies training programmes don’t have this on their reading list? Is delving into a book too hard?
 
Back in 1996 I wrote in Museum Practice that “there is no one ideal relative humidity”, adding that extremes and sudden fluctuations should be avoided.

In 1999 I returned to the theme again in Museum Practice calling for the numbers in BS5454 to be replaced with ‘good design’ and a stable environment with ‘realistic parameters’. I am not the only person that has been raising this kind of point for the last two decades.

The question is why is it still news? I worry people reject science that does not offer soundbites but instead offers a rationale with which people can produce sensible environmental considerations for their collection, building budget and environmental impact.

Yes ‘don’t touch the dial’ but also do go and dust off the science. Searching for simplistic solutions encourages dogma which neither our budgets nor the planet can afford.

Jane Henderson, professional tutor in conservation, Cardiff University

Museums Journal February 2011, p17


In reference to Lauren Woodard’s letter expressing her concerns about internships, the example referring to the National Maritime Museum (NMM) does not in fact support her thesis.

The metals conservation internship recently offered by the NMM is a paid one-year internship, with a salary of £19,200 as stated in its advertisement and job description.

This internship is indeed a positive training opportunity designed to give necessary, practical, hands-on collections conservation experience under the personal tutelage of a senior professional.

This is one of six paid internships in conservation being offered by the NMM from 2010 to 2014, generously funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Skills for the Future programme.

These paid conservation internships are an excellent example of how heritage funding and skilled experts can work together to ensure sectoral opportunities for those just starting their careers and to ensure that important skills devoted to preserving our heritage transfer from one generation to the next.

Angela Doane, director collections, National Maritime Museum, London

I agree with most of what Lauren Woodard has to say about internships. I have a friend who applied for a student placement/internship at a national museum.

During interview he expressed a desire to learn more about the collections in his lunch breaks.

It was explained that this would be frowned upon as what was required was a skivvy to do mundane tasks that were falling behind due to recent redundancies among paid staff.

But I feel that Woodard is off the mark in her implication that people with graduate or post-graduate qualifications should not expect to do internships/voluntary placements.

This has always been a fact of life for museum professionals and, although it certainly reduces universal access to the profession as she suggests, it is, in effect, just another part of the pre-entry training process and is probably less of a problem than the high costs of the degree courses in the first place.

The really important thing is the balance between internships and permanent jobs in the profession. If doing a few months’ work placement makes it likely that you will get a paid permanent job at the end of it, that’s fine.

If vast numbers of interns are being taken on whom employers are well aware stand little chance of securing longterm paid employment, then it is exploitation of the worst kind.

Erik Blakeley, learning projects manager, Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset
 
Museums Journal April 2011, p18


I found the article on disposal interesting but was concerned that the tone of the piece seemed to imply that since not much was known about the rock collections they were quickly thrown in the skip, while other objects were researched in depth resulting in new information and new homes.

While it did sound like the unlabelled student collections were of little use, I can make several suggestions that might prevent this happening to other rock collections in the future.

There are several natural history groups that can help with identifying and curating geological specimens. The Natural Sciences Collections Association; Geological Curators’ Group (GCG); and the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (based in the US) have online forums where queries can be posted.

For minerals, Mindat.org has a lively discussion board. There are also training and seminars. The GCG has one this month called “So you’ve got a geology collection – now what?”

Finally to prevent build up of poorly-labelled student collections, make sure anyone doing fieldwork is trained to label specimens properly, and don’t accept their specimens unless they do.

Helen Kerbey, department of geology, Amgueddfa Cymru, National Museum Wales

Museums Journal March 2011, p33

Clarification: The Scottish Maritime Museum is in Irvine, not Glasgow, as was stated on p56 of Museums Journal, April 2010.