Collections maintenance

Collection maintenance is an area of collections management that consists of the day-to-day hands on care of collections and cultural heritage. The primary goal of collections maintenance or preventive conservation is to prevent further decay of cultural heritage by ensuring proper storage and upkeep including performing regular housekeeping of the spaces and objects and monitoring and controlling storage and gallery environments. Collections maintenance is part of the risk management field of collections management. The professionals most involved with collections maintenance include collection managers, registrars, and archivists, depending on the size and scope of the institution. Collections maintenance takes place in two primary areas of the museum: storage areas and display areas.

Collection maintenance and its tasks all work as a means to continually observe the condition of collections and ensure they are properly maintained and cared for.^[1] Because museums and repositories are stewards of cultural property in the public trust, they have a "responsibility to provide reasonable care for the objects entrusted" to them.^[2] Museum's collections maintenance tasks can also involve assessing and implementing strategies to improve storage areas and containers while continuously monitoring environmental conditions that may affect objects.^[3]

The collections management policy of an institution should include sections that address storage, integrated pest management, conservation, record management and documentation, inventories, and risk management. These policy sections should guide the scope of collections maintenance and designate responsibilities with staff members.^[4] A Collections Management Policy is considered a core document meant to support Collections Stewardship Core Standards and may be updated periodically to reflect best practices best served for a museum's specific collection.^[5]