I Can See Further Now: Preventive Conservation in a Changing Heritage World

ABSTRACT

Cultural heritage has undergone a paradigm shift in recent decades. Museums in particular have changed from being a house of treasures to be admired by visitors, to being a place where objects provide the context for new interpretations. Today, visitors are provided with an opportunity to participate and co-create meaning. At the same time a UK government requirement for accountability has pushed the sector towards business management and professionalisation. This new context has forced conservators to respond by aligning themselves with these trends. In order to stay relevant conservators have to take on an active role in facilitating audience participation and increased access to collections, while at the same time improving their efficiency and accountability. Preservation frameworks have played a significant role in enabling conservators to respond to these changed needs within the sector. Crucially, preservation frameworks have encouraged conservation professionals to collaborate with colleagues from across an entire organisation. Having gained a broader understanding of the context within which they work, preservation frameworks have also allowed conservators to systematically collate and analyse data and present these to their stakeholders in a language understood by them. The review of a number of case studies reveals that preservation frameworks help conservators understand the bigger picture and be influential at the right levels.     

Leadership Reflections: Leadership Paradoxes

Leadership faces a number of paradoxes that can be challenging and confusing, particularly as individuals take on new leadership roles. Employees want leaders to be decisive but participatory in decision making, focused on big pictures but contribute to detailed discussions, and engage but not micromanage. It is confusing as mixed messages are given to leaders and the opinions of employees vary, creating a situation in which it is difficult for leaders to fully understand employee expectations. Leaders not only need to understand these paradoxes but develop methods to balance employee expectations and communication strategies that help employees appreciate the balancing act that each leader must develop.     

Leadership Reflections: Leadership Skills for Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is a process that infuses knowledge and decision making across an organization. It not only encourages decision making based on data but also fosters communication among personnel for informed practices and processes. The social connections within an organization facilitate the formal structure and encourage personnel to share expertise, insights, and past experiences to inform decision making. Such a highly interactive organization requires leadership that supports and encourages knowledge management practices. A successful knowledge management organization depends on certain leadership characteristics in order to foster interactions that contribute to the processes. A variety of characteristics and patterns will offer leaders understanding on how to lead within a knowledge management library.     

Leadership Reflections: Extrovert and Introvert Leaders

Leadership calls for the ability to work well with people, communicate with stakeholders, participate in and lead meetings, and often public speaking. As a leader advances within an organization, expectations increase for the individual to engage with others as leaders spend more time working with colleagues and stakeholders to advance the organization. These expectations tend to favor extroverts in leadership roles but organizations may overlook the strengths of introverts as leaders losing out on the potential for effective management. An understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of personality types will help individuals as well as organizations in developing leadership in order to achieve organizational goals.     

Interim Leadership

ABSTRACT

Leadership training tends to focus on development and performance of leadership skills with the implied understanding that the position is permanent or the appointment is formalized. Yet organizations require temporary leaders during leadership gaps but there is limited information on serving in an acting role or for a short period of time. Serving as an interim leader has unique challenges and opportunities but several considerations should be made to make this a positive experience providing smooth transitions for an organization.     

Access and Conservation at Pompeii: Strategies for Sustainable Co-existence

ABSTRACT

The extraordinary surviving paintings and floor surfaces at Pompeii are subjected daily to environmental degradation and anthropic pressure. In 2017, the ancient city was visited by 3,400,000 tourists – almost 1,000,000 more than a mere 5?years earlier. This figure looks set to increase, as a result of the revival that the site has undergone in recent years, thanks to generous funding from the European Union and the work of the Great Pompeii Project, which has enabled the reopening of a large number of domestic properties and indeed entire urban quarters which had been closed for decades. However, the increase in site usage necessitates more attention to be paid to conservation. Preventive conservation and planned maintenance, overseen by the Great Pompeii Project, represent the first response. It is conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of archaeologists, architects, conservators and specialists who are present on the site every day, responsible for the management of emergencies, and policy planning through organisation, study, application and evaluation of the consequences. Due to increased tourist numbers, the monitoring team covers every single accessible building, to study the dynamics of visitor flow, and to identify possible interventions to mitigate the effects of anthropic pressure.     

Young and in Charge: Early-Career Community College Library Leadership

Although young leaders and entrepreneurs have become prevalent in the business and technology industries, academic libraries remain much more traditional. Library administrator job advertisements often require seven to ten years of library experience in progressively responsible roles as well as supervisory experience. This article shares the experiences of an early-career community college library administrator working with different generations, provides suggestions to become a manager through intentional leadership, and explores how managers learn to lead. Additionally, the author encourages community colleges to consider younger and/or newer librarians that bring a different perspective to addressing the critical issues facing community college libraries today.     

Academic Library Leadership in South West Nigeria and Recession: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT

Academic libraries in developing countries are underfunded and require transformational leadership to manage the resultant changes and ensure organizational effectiveness. This study attempts to identify the prevalent leadership styles in academic libraries in South West Nigeria using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The study reflected that the library managers portrayed mostly a mix of transformational and transactional leadership styles. The library budget, equipment, and acquisition were most affected by recession. The library leaders preferred a mixture of investment and retrenchment (cost controlling) strategies to cope with recession. Leadership assessment using transformational model for coaching and recruitment is recommended for libraries.     

Leadership and Social Justice

ABSTRACT

Leaders have tremendous influence not only in their organizations but for the profession and within the communities they serve. Librarianship has strong core values that are the foundation of our services but librarians also create an environment that supports diversity of opinions. How does a library leader balance social justice while serving the broad needs of a community? Is there an inherent conflict between personal perspectives and the encompassing multiple viewpoints? Library leaders may face difficult decisions in determining social justice issues within their libraries considering personal beliefs, institutional responsibilities, and community impacts. Every library leader has opportunities to address social justice issues within libraries and in so doing, will advance community goals of inclusiveness of all members.     

Leadership Reflections: Advisory Bodies

An important component of librarianship is the connection between a library and its community. Advisory committees or boards are a valuable tools for a leader to manage this connection and provides a leader with external expertise that can make a significant impact on a library community. However, advisory bodies need to be established for specific purposes and require a significant time commitment to ensure that members are contributing in a meaningful way. There are cautions in working with advisory bodies but the benefits of tapping into the potential benefits are worth the time and effort in working with community volunteers.     

Leadership Reflections: Resiliency in Library Organizations

Similar to individuals, organizations display characteristics that speak to qualities and abilities. Our guest writer, Lisa Bodenheimer, discusses a trait that is critical for library organizations during this period of constant change and transformation. Resiliency is the ability to rebound and flex as circumstances shift enabling an organization to thrive and adjust during difficult times. This skill is typically developed through experiences, but, as Ms. Bodenheimer outlines, organizations are able to strategize in order to build employee and organizational resilience. Such a proactive approach will enable a library organization to better weather challenging situations and times as difficulties will enviably occur. The following article provides practical suggestions for library organizations that will enable them to be more successful while leading and managing in a changing environment.     

Enhancing Research Impact in Heritage Conservation

This paper examines how research impact is defined, measured, and generated – with a view to understanding how it can be enhanced within heritage conservation. It examines what is meant by ‘impact’ and how it can be promoted within heritage science through effective inter-disciplinary collaboration. Following a general examination of the current discourse concerning research impact, the study examined: (i) active research networks within heritage science; (ii) research planning and evaluation practices within heritage science; and (iii) the experiences of users (i.e. conservators and other heritage professionals) within research collaborations. Terminologies surrounding the notion of impact and the various phases of the research process were reviewed – from the initial identification of a knowledge gap to the eventual application of new findings in practice. Next, the reach and diversity of research collaborations (as identified through publication co-authorship) were studied to characterise the inter-disciplinary nature of heritage science and its connectedness to users. Findings showed substantial growth in international research collaborations over recent years, predominantly involving academic- and research-oriented institutions – although the engagement of heritage institutions has proportionally decreased. In addition, a worldwide survey of institutional planning and evaluation practices revealed a general reliance on processes driven by the interests of researchers – the systematic consideration of stakeholder opinion and evaluation of research outcomes being less common. Finally, a series of semi-structured interviews with senior heritage professionals explored their experience of collaborative research. The results identified key areas where strategic support is needed to promote user participation and enhance impact. These include training for research readiness, engagement, and impact for both researchers and users; better methods for needs and outcome assessment; affordable open access options and greater diversity of knowledge exchange opportunities. Finally, the need for ethical guidelines for responsible research, and greater emphasis on non-academic impact within research rating systems are discussed.     

The Imperative of Soft Skill Development in Preventive Conservation Practice and Training

ABSTRACT

Cultural heritage is wonderfully diverse and as heritage preservation professionals, it is our duty to address the preventive conservation of all cultural heritages. However, there is no one set of guidelines, practices or rules that can be applied in all situations. A preventive conservator with strong technical and soft skills is essential in this situation. At the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC), preventive conservation has been an identifiable part of the curriculum since the early 1980s. From its establishment, the curriculum has evolved to include the teaching of both current day technical skills for the practice of preventive conservation and soft skills in teamwork, leadership, institutional priorities and goals identification, and written and oral communication. These are taught to all students in their first year and those that select the option of a preventive conservation minor in their second year. Recently, it has become clear that it is not possible to teach adequately both the technical and soft skills needed for the practice of preventive conservation within WUDPAC's existing minor area of study. Additional time is needed to study and develop the complex theories, abilities and requisite skills that characterize the preventive conservation specialty. This paper discusses the work to develop a curriculum for a WUDPAC preventive conservation major, the strong mandate to continue to teach both technical and soft skills, and the surprising resistance to the establishment of a preventive conservation major.     

Diagnosing Decay Mechanisms at the Porta Nocera Necropolis,Pompeii: The First Step Towards Effective Preventive Conservation

ABSTRACT

Aspects of preventive conservation are central to the long-term preservation of archaeological sites such as Pompeii. Mitigating moisture ingress and its manifold effects on decay mechanisms such as salt degradation are of critical importance when planning durable conservation strategies. A suite of non-destructive techniques was used to diagnose decay mechanisms at an ancient tomb monument at the Porta Nocera Necropolis. Rising damp and salt contamination are shown to be actively contributing to on-going deterioration of the plaster surfaces. An existing shelter is shown to be inadequate in its protection. These initial results are used to inform a more in-depth, long-term survey as well as the design of a holistic preventive strategy.     

Evidencing the Case for Preventive Conservation: the Role of Collections Care Documentation

ABSTRACT

Collections care describes actions taken to prevent or limit the deterioration of moveable cultural heritage and ‘collections care documentation’ (CCD) refers to the recording and retention of information relating to those activities. This paper describes the findings of a survey and targeted interviews with staff from a number of U.K. museums, archives and libraries. The results suggest that, while there is much good practice, some organisations face difficulties instituting a framework for CCD which covers all their activities effectively.

Large and small organisations have varying challenges to face; the former with specialist staff working in separate departments and the latter with staff who carry out activities relating to preventive conservation but who may not have specialist knowledge. An efficient documentation structure, which is resilient and relevant to the organisation, can support and improve communication as well as raise awareness of the reasons for and methods of preventive conservation. This paper looks at the reasons why even basic practices can sometimes be difficult to achieve and presents ideas for identifying and overcoming barriers. As preventive conservators argue that specified actions influence the long-term sustainability of collections the evidence that allows verification those claims needs to be retained. In order to do this, a greater focus on what data to collect and why will enable the sector to align CCD with specific research questions.     

Leadership Reflections: It is Not About the Perks

Abstract

Our guest columnist is Karl Bridges who has served in a variety of leadership roles in academic libraries. I have gotten to know Karl over the past few years as he was asked to serve in an interim dean role and then hired into the permanent dean positions. At the time, I was at the University of Wyoming and serving as a leader in sparsely populated state where everyone knows your name. Western leaders have to form a tight bond – there are fewer of us and the distances are great. But regardless of geographical situations, leaders need and depend on peer networks that provide a safe space for frank conversations and sharing ideas that help all libraries achieve their goals. Karl has dealt with changing university leadership, library transformations, and dire budget situations. Well, pretty much what every library leader must face. Despite these challenges, library leaders have an opportunity to make a real difference. Karl draws upon his years of experience to provide a thought piece about library leadership noting the complexity, the importance of leadership, and the real joy of making a difference in someone’s life. I hope you enjoy this raw look at leadership and that it reminds you of the purpose of leadership.     

LIS Leadership and Leadership Education: A Matter of Gender

To grapple with the difficulties of change, LIS literature often turns to a discourse of leadership as a way of gaining an understanding of how change can be effectively and appropriately managed. However, much of this work fails to account for the feminized nature of the profession and the gendered practices that shape the roles of men and women who choose this field. Furthermore, there is an absence of literature that interrogates the ways in which LIS master's programs address gendered practice. Beginning with an examination of how the field of LIS is feminized, I set out to reveal how, within the context of gender, the experience of women who advance in LIS leadership and administrative positions remains poorly understood. I suggest that the adoption of masculinized practices is a response to the devaluation of “women's work” that has historically defined the service ethic of librarianship. This article serves as an example of the ways in which it is possible to interrogate assumptions about leadership.     

新时期档案机构参与非遗保护的反思与再定位

21世纪以来,在社会参与非遗保护的热潮中,档案学界对档案机构的参与寄予厚望,但本文通过文献调查发现,实践中档案机构的参与状况并不理想,呈现小规模和自发性的参与特点;参与方式虽体现出专业化优势,但存在较大的局限性;参与效果呈现边缘化和形式化窘境。作者认为缺乏动力、缺乏魄力、缺乏实力是造成档案机构参与状况不理想的主要原因。最后,文章提出在新时期档案机构应重新定位参与非遗保护的角色,把握文化治理趋势彰显档案馆的人文关怀,抓住记忆建构趋势开展非遗档案资源库建设,紧追人文研究趋势拓展非遗数字人文服务,重视文化服务趋势参与非遗专题资源整合共享,关注文化传播趋势加强非遗文化知识传播,正视文化传承趋势开展非遗档案知识服务。     

The Long-Term Conservation of the Australopithecus-bearing Member 4 Excavation Walls at the Sterkfontein Caves,South Africa

The Sterkfontein Caves UNESCO World Heritage site represents one of South Africa’s most valuable cultural heritage resources and is one of the world’s most prolific palaeoanthropological sites with its fossiliferous deposits spanning the last 3.5 million years. One of the most famous fossil-bearing deposits at Sterkfontein is the 2.5 million-year-old Member 4. This is the world’s richest Australopithecus-bearing deposit and has yielded iconic fossils like StS 5 – Mrs Ples, StW 53, two partial skeletons, and two species of Australopithecus. After 80 years of research, Member 4 continues to provide crucial evidence for human origins research. Over the last 35 years, since excavation of the Member 4 started exposing the walls of the deposit, their deterioration has been accelerating. The implications of this deterioration and impending collapse are severe, not only from a palaeoanthropological perspective but also a heritage management point of view. This article focuses on our efforts to conserve the deteriorating areas of the Member 4 excavation site. The project required the development of a comprehensive set of strategies that had to be adapted to the specific requirements of the national and local heritage management agencies and remain sensitive to ongoing research programmes. The strategy developed included: multiscale integrative documentation of the exposed deposits; comprehensive, independent but cohesive stabilization of the different components of the deposit while maintaining visibility for ongoing and future research; and installation of stabilization infrastructure that could be adapted to the long-term conservation excavation plan while maintaining deposit integrity and site safety.