Conservation audit

Alison Walster writes through R. A. Reynolds

>Can anyone suggest a useful source for guidelines on writing
>conservation policies?

A good source is the Museums & Galleries Commission's "Standards in
the Museum Care of Archaeological Collections", 1992, edited by
Crispin Paine.

>Can anyone recommend a
>sampling method as it will be impossible to check all the
>objects?

In regard to sampling, if they do not want to apply a random
sampling technique to the collection as a whole, they may want to
try sampling categories of artifacts instead.  Break the collection
down into either a material classification (cast iron, copper, low
fired ceramics, etc) or a functional classification (spoons, cups,
nails, etc.) Sampling would then be applied to each classification.
The more objects there are in a collection, a smaller number need be
sampled for the sample to be "representative".  For collection sizes
in the range of thousands, as little as a few percent could be
representative.

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:82
                 Distributed: Thursday, March 20, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-10-82-004
                                  ***