1. European Heads of Conservation Group – history and future
István Kecskeméti

2. 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
Session 1: Preservation strategies (chair István Kecskeméti)
Session 2: Finding the risks, Condition survey methodology (chair Jonas Palm)
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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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
JPEG (x2)
PDF/A
Metadata
(technical)
Transfer package
Metadata - indexes
Transfer server
(internal)

7. 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.

8. Google Drive for internal use

9. 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.

10. 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. – 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

11. RIGA 2015

12. THE HAGUE 2016