European Heads of Conservation Group – history and future István Kecskeméti 3.2.2016

Short history of the group, meeting 1 Group networking started by István Kecskeméti 2009 as an informal technical meeting and a formal one day conference in Helsinki: Thursday, September 17, 2009: Network members technical meeting Short introduction and presentation of conservation and preservation activities of each participant, 15 min each Friday, September 18, 2009: Conference day 9.10-11.00 Session 1: Preservation strategies (chair István Kecskeméti) 12.00-13.50 Session 2: Finding the risks, Condition survey methodology (chair Jonas Palm) 14.20-16.10 Session 3: Practical conservation and applied research (chair Jaan Lehtaru) Participants from Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden

Short history of the group, meeting 2-3 2010 second meeting at the National Archives of the Netherlands Short news from the network members Round table discussion of following subjects Outsourcing Conservation guidelines and ethics Digitisation techniques and guidelines Level of knowledge needed about digitization 2011 third meeting at the National Archives of the Hungary - Special theme: Building and Managing Repositories - Decision to organise the network meetings by the country holding EU Precidency (spring) - Decision to decide a theme for the coming meeting

Short history of the group, meeting 4-6 2012 fourth meeting at the National Archives of the Denmark - Theme: Mould, how to cope with mould and moulded collections - Short reports from network members about the present theme - Visit to the new repositories of National Archives of Denmark 2013 fifth meeting at the National Archives of the Ireland - Theme: Archives, dust and mould - Presentations of theme related subjects - Visit to the Archives and Trinity College 2014 sixth meeting at the National Archives of the Greece - Theme: Prioritisation of Conservation work - Presentations of theme related subjects and case studies

Short history of the group, meeting 5-7 2015 seventh meeting at the National Archives of the Latvia - Short reports from the participants - Theme: The impact of the digitization on the conservation and restoration processes - Selected presentations to the theme 2016 eight meeting at the National Archives of the Netherlands - Short reports from the participants related to the theme - Theme: First line conservation as preamble for digitization

Conservation treatments Thorough conservation?? Maps Mould Clear tapes Highly damaged Iron gall ink Collection (originals) Pretreatments Metadata Sorting Physical preparation Rehousing Scanning 8 bit 24 bit Conservation treatments First line treatments Thorough conservation?? Rehousing Values User interface Transfer package TIFF 2 X Jpeg Storage room/ digital storage TIFF Digital archives Usage Digital Archives http://digi.narc.fi JPEG (x2) PDF/A Metadata (technical) Transfer package Metadata - indexes Transfer server (internal)

9th meeting in Malta 2017 THEME 1: Manual of First Line Conservation for Digitization’ Outcome of the meeting: to produce a common Manual for International use. Indicating when resources for conservation (first line conservation or thorough treatments) or when only guidance for preparation is needed – resulting best practices for preparing the collections for digitization. Participants asked to prepare their instructions before the Malta meeting. Finland has already national guidelines in action for: Guidelines for conservation of map collections Guidelines for preparation of map collections for digitization Guidelines for preparation of cataloguing card and loose sheet collections for digitization Guidelines for cutting bindings for digitization THEME 2: ‘Problems associated with working on documents with Iron Gall Ink’.   New aspects and angles on an old conservation problem (first discussed in 1890´s by conservator society) which is severe risk for the most valuable parts of our eldest collection.

Google Drive for internal use

EHC network future EHC convenes once a year under the chairmanship of the EU-Presidency in question during spring time. In their meetings the Heads of Conservation and Preservation (in some cases also Digitisation) discuss the strategic questions of their profession and services: preservation of collections, condition surveys, risk analyses, preparing/conserving collections for digitisation, digitisation as a means of preservation etc. As being already invited by the National Archive of the chair country of the EU-Precidency, the group identifies the importance to be more officially connected to the EAG/EBNA body. The EHC network meetings are planned to continue once a year as earlier, in spring time.

EHC network future The EHC network members should be chosen by the Director General of each countrys National Archives and they should preferably be the head of conservation / preservation (or their substitutes) and also, in some cases, digitization. They should have the mandate to present their institute in the professional and strategic issues related to conservation and preservation. The individual participants will report on the group activities to the boards of each countrys National Archives as well the EHC network at the EAG/EBNA meetings We propose that the EHC network outcomes should be published on an open website (e.g. http://ec.europa.eu/archival-policy/index_en.htm) – the present Google Drive (or similar solution) will survive as an internal source for the group Accepting members from National Archives of non-EU European countries? Iceland, Norway, Ukraina have participated earlier

RIGA 2015

THE HAGUE 2016

istvan.kecskemeti@arkisto.fi