Condition survey

The Archives of Ontario is planning a collection condition survey
for our holdings of government and private textual records, which
consists of about 28,000 cubic feet of paper and bound volumes.
Approximately 40% of this material is unique, irreplaceable 18th and
19th century records, the rest 20th century.  Given the volume of
material we do not intend to conduct a box by box, item by item
inspection for everything, but rather intend to use a combination of
box by box inspection and a sampling methodology for large series of
records in the same format.  We plan also to design a database using
MS Access software, to record the data we collect and to enable us
to generate  various statistical reports for future planning and
prioritizing of the preservation needs of this material.

We are giving ourselves five months to complete this project from
start of database design to final report on findings.  This may
sound overly ambitious but the data we need to collect for our
purposes in preservation planning is fairly simple and not too
extensive or detailed in terms of the condition of the collections.
Also we have done previous surveys of other collections so have a
model to start from.

I would however be interested in hearing from anyone with experience
in this type of  collection survey project.  How did you approach
the survey, what unexpected problems did you encounter, any
suggestions to offer regarding sampling methodology,  any comments
regarding database design, etc?

Iona McCraith
Head Conservator, Archives of Ontario
Toronto, Canada
416-327-1521
Fax: 416-327-1999

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:57
                 Distributed: Tuesday, January 12, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-12-57-014
                                  ***