Conservation Plan for the Archive Collections of the Suffolk Record Office
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HG-014-08167 The Hold 14. Conservation Plan NCS Suffolk CP 2017 www.ncs.org.uk Conservation Plan for the archive collections of the Suffolk Record Office 1 NCS Suffolk CP 2017 www.ncs.org.uk Contents List of acronyms used .................................................................................................... 3 Glossary......................................................................................................................... 4 1. Executive Summary ................................................................................................... 5 2. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 10 3. Understanding the heritage ...................................................................................... 14 4. Statement of Significance ........................................................................................ 53 5. Risks, Opportunities and Policies .......................................................................... 103 6. Adoption and review ............................................................................................... 119 Appendix 1 - Detailed Statement of Significance ....................................................... 120 Appendix 2 – Full risk analysis of the SRO accommodation ...................................... 166 Appendix 3 – How SRO organises the classification of collection types .................... 188 Appendix 4 – Full policies .......................................................................................... 193 Appendix 5 – Full Results of Collection Surveys undertaken for this Conservation Plan ................................................................................................................................... 268 Appendix 6 - Photographic materials survey, 2017 .................................................... 284 2 NCS Suffolk CP 2017 www.ncs.org.uk List of acronyms used ASAS Archive Service Accreditation Standard BRO Bury Record Office (branch of SRO) CAA County Archaeological Archive EERAC East of England Regional Archives Council FOSRO Friends of Suffolk Record Office FTE Full Time Equivalent (staffing) HER Historic Environment Record HLF Heritage Lottery Fund IRO Ipswich Record Office (branch of SRO) ISAD(G) International Standard Archival Description (General) LRO Lowestoft Record Office (branch of SRO) MDR Manorial Documents Register NADFAS National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies NCA National Council on Archives NCS National Conservation Service PACR The Professional Accreditation of Conservator-Restorers (PACR) PAS Portable Antiquities Scheme and Preservation Assessment Survey PSQG Public Services Quality Group RH Relative Humidity SCC Suffolk County Council SCCAS Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service SFHS Suffolk Family History Society SHD Suffolk Heritage Direct SIAH Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Local History SLHC Suffolk Local History Council SPS Suffolk Photographic Survey SRO Suffolk Record Office TNA The National Archives U3A University of the Third Age UoS University of Suffolk UEA University of East Anglia (Norwich) WDYTYA Who Do You Think You Are 3 NCS Suffolk CP 2017 www.ncs.org.uk Glossary Accessioning – the process of physically and legally transferring archival material into the SRO collections Accruals – additions to a collection which are added to the collection after the initial collection is accepted by SRO Appraisal – assessing the contents of a collection to decide which elements are of long- term value. This process can be repeated and is then known as reappraisal. CALM - proprietary software used to accession, catalogue and manage collections Cataloguing – the process of creating a written description which describes the content of a collection and explains the history and interrelationships of the records therein Collection – archival material which has the same provenance and is treated as a discrete unit for physical and intellectual management Digital preservation – the combination of policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and born digital content regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time Documentation plan – plan of what needs to be done to prioritised collections in terms of cataloguing and digitisation in order to make them more accessible. It forms part of the Management and Maintenance Plan (section 5; Action Plans and Costs) Eltek – environmental monitoring equipment Ephemera – documents created for a single purpose and with a short usage period which in everyday use would have been quickly discarded e.g. train tickets, fliers for plays. May often have very low level archival value and thus will not be collect in bulk by an archive. Microform – microfilm and microfiche formats Preservica – a proprietary digital preservation system Records Management - controlling records within a comprehensive regime made up of policies, procedures, systems, processes and behaviours to ensure that reliable evidence of actions and decisions is kept and remains available Red Rot – degradation in vegetable-tanned leather caused by high levels of relative humidity, temperature and/or pollution Repository – the place where collections are stored. A repository can be physical or digital (as part of a digital preservation process) SharePoint – a document management and storage system that integrates with Microsoft office. It is not a digital preservation system. Tiny Tag – environmental data logger 4 NCS Suffolk CP 2017 www.ncs.org.uk 1. Executive Summary 1.1 Understanding the Heritage 1.1.1 The Suffolk Record Office (SRO) archive collections comprise approximately 11,000 individual collections occupying 1303m3 and date from 1119 to the current day. They come from a variety of individuals and organisations including: • County, borough, district and parish councils and predecessor bodies • Courts, probate, coroners, police and prisons • Church of England and non-conformist churches/chapels • Businesses, maritime organisations, trades unions, co-operatives • Local societies • Landed families and estates All types of archival formats are collected including paper, parchment, photographic, audio-visual and digital. 1.1.2 SRO’s Local Studies collection of published sources comprises 34,000 volumes dating from 1548 to the present day occupying 161 m3. It also includes thousands of Ordnance Survey maps, newspapers, pamphlets and periodicals. 1.1.3 The Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service (SCCAS) material that will be held in The Hold is equal to 10m3 and approximately 910 GB and includes: • Primary paper site records from 36 archaeological sites in Ipswich • The County Archaeological Archive (CAA) of negatives, slides, photographs, X- rays, drawings, fiche etc. for the above sites • Basil Brown and Lady Briscoe archaeological archives. 1.2 How the heritage is currently managed SRO seeks to achieve the highest professional standards within the constraints it faces, and will apply for Archives Accreditation from The National Archives (TNA) in the near future. • SRO collecting is managed through a Collecting Policy, but lack of storage prohibits large-scale proactive collecting. SCCAS collects archaeological primary archives from excavation work undertaken in Suffolk. • SRO, like the majority of UK local authority archive repositories, has a cataloguing backlog. At March 2017 of total collections 74% are catalogued to at least box list or rough list and 26% are completely unlisted. 5 NCS Suffolk CP 2017 www.ncs.org.uk • 7.1% of the catalogue information is available for public access online at Suffolk Archives and at Discovery, the TNA online catalogue • SRO has one FTE accredited conservator-restorer to cover all branches and a well-equipped conservation studio located in inadequate accommodation at Ipswich. • SRO has undertaken extensive surveying work as part of the development of this Conservation Plan to build on the British Library Preservation Assessment Survey (PAS) undertaken in 2008. The findings have informed the SRO’s action plans (see Appendix 5). • SRO employees 21.71 FTE staff of which. 6.4 FTEs are posts that require professional or a professional postgraduate qualification. • In the year 2015/16 85 volunteers provided 7,894 hours of work equating to a cash value of £68,5981. In 2010, Suffolk won The National Archives’ Volunteering Award. • SRO has basic onsite public access. The Ipswich and Bury buildings are completely unsuitable for a modern archive service. • SCCAS has no designated public access space and visitors work in staff offices. • Strongrooms at Bury and Lowestoft are full, and the Ipswich office has only 64m3 spare. TNA withdrew their higher ‘full approval’ status for all SRO branches under the requirements of The National Archives Standard for Record Repositories (2004) in 2012 due to lack of accrual space. • There are problems with the quality of archival storage at all three branches and SRO struggles to meet BS4971:2017 Conservation & Care of Archive & Library Collections and BS-PD5454:2012 Guide for the storage and exhibition of archival materials2. • SCCAS maintains its archive stores in accordance with the national guidelines published by the Archaeological Archives Forum. The paper and sensitive finds stores are purpose-built and environmentally monitored. • At Ipswich and Bury there are no