1. Risk map tool for Collection Risk Management
Marja Peek
Research Department
ICN
Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage
Amsterdam
Risk map tool for Collection Risk Management
(My name is Marja Peek. I work at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage.)
ICN is a knowledge institute for management and preservation of moveable cultural heritage. Next to doing research, ICN is keeper of the largest State collection of the Netherlands. Museums, libraries, archives and other collection managers can take advantage of the services provided by ICN. ICN is located in Amsterdam and Rijswijk and is part of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
ICMS Conference
Québec September 2009

2. Netherlands Institute for Cultural heritage

3. Collection Risk Management ICN Research program 2009-2012
In January 2009 ICN started five major research programs for the next four years (period ). One of them is entitled Collection Risk Management. In this program knowledge and expertise in the fields of conservation and museum security are combined.

4. International cooperation
Development of collection risk management at ICN dates from 2003 and is done in cooperation with Mr Robert Waller, affiliated to the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, CCI the Canadian Conservation Institute also in Ottawa and ICCROM the International Centre for the Study of Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Rome.
The research program is executed within this international network. My colleague Agnes Brokerhof who has been involved with this network from the beginning, is leading the research program at ICN. Next to her, Bart Ankersmit, Frank Ligterink and I form the research team for this program. Agnes contributed greatly to this presentation, for which I like to thank her a lot.

5. ICN research program CRM
Develop user friendly method for CRM by practical tools (e.g. risk maps)
Disseminate the method, knowledge and tools by presentations, workshops and publications (Collection Risk Management Handbook)
The Collection Risk Management program at ICN aims to develop a user friendly method for collection risk management for Dutch museums. For that purpose practical user friendly tools will be developed, such as risk maps.
ICN disseminates the methodology, the knowledge and the tools by means of presentations, workshops and publications. At the end of the program a Collection Risk Management Handbook will be published.
Within the Collection Risk Management Program current emphasis is on the development of risk maps as a practical tool for the identification, analysis and mitigation of risks.

6. Heritage profession Goals:
Passing on cultural heritage collections to next generations with maximum values and maximum access, now and in the future
Taking well-considered decisions about the spending of means to reach that goal
As heritage professionals, we want to pass on cultural heritage collections to future generations with as much values and as much access as possible. In our world of limited resources and many threats to our collections, we need prioritise and “manage” collections and resources. Which means, we need to manage the risks.
Setting priorities!

7. Communicate and consult
Collection risk management
Establish the context
Identify risks
Analyse risks
Risk assessment
Communicate and consult
Monitor and review
Evaluate risks
Collection risk management is a strategy to identify, analyze and evaluate all threats to collections on the basis of the expected loss of values in a certain period of time. Then risks can be ranked and measures can be prioritised in order to reduce the loss of values.
In this definition of collection risk management so called ‘conservation risks’ – the field of collections care - and ‘security risks’ – the field of facilities and security - are assessed in an integral manner. Thus bringing together the knowledge and experience of at least two museum business unites: collections care and facilities/security.
All threats are grouped by Stefan Michalski and Robert Waller under the 10 agents of deterioration.
Options for risk reduction
Treat risks
Preventive & interventive conservation
Emergency preparedness & response Hk hk
Implement
Based on AS/NZS 4360:2004 Risk Management

8. Agents of deterioration After Michalski and Waller
Physical forces
Fire
Water
Thieves and vandals
Pest and plants
Radiation
Contamination
Incorrect Temp
Incorrect RH
Dissociation
Security
Facilities
Preventive conservation
Collections
Physical Forces breakage from dropping objects, abrasion from constant vibration
Fire complete consumption, scorching, soot, smoke, water damage
Water dissolution, swelling, shrinking, corrosion, staining
Thieves and Vandals disappearance of part or complete objects through theft, disfiguring through vandalism
Pests and plants grazing or chewing marks, staining, weakening
Radiation fading, darkening, yellowing, embrittlement through light and UV exposure
Contamination corrosion, staining, discolouring
Incorrect Temperature melting, embrittlement, disintegration
Incorrect Relative Humidity mould, staining, weakening, corrosion, swelling, shrinking, splitting,
Dissociation inaccessibility, irretrievability, loss of object data
Registration

9. Types of risk After Waller
Catastrophic
Disasters
Significant
Impact
Incidents
Mild
Degradation processes
These 10 agents of deterioration contain very different types of risk: disasters, incidents and degradation processes.
Probability and impact can be combined to give various types of risk, the rare but catastrophic events, the sporadic incidents that result in significant loss and the continuous processes that cause mild but accumulating loss.
These three types of risk can be compared with each other because – if we look at a longer period of time, say a century – they can lead to comparable loss of value.
Rare
Sporadic
Continual
Probability

10. Likelihood X Consequence
the possibility of loss
Risk is
of cultural value
Chance X Effect
Probability X Impact
Likelihood X Consequence
How soon? X How bad?
The 10 agents contain the zillion risks that threaten our collections.
Risk is defined as the ‘possibility of loss’. Risk is usually looked at as the product of the likelihood or probability that a harmful event or process takes place and the consequence, impact or effect of that event or process, R = P x C.
When thinking of risks to collections the consequence can be expressed by considering how much of a collection could be affected and how bad the impact will be. To be able to compare apples and oranges, in collection risk management the unit in which the consequence is expressed is ‘loss of cultural value’ where value is not just monetary value.
Thus risk becomes the ‘possibility of loss of cultural value’ or the ‘expected loss of cultural value’.
The magnitude of a given risk depends on the combination of its likelihood (in case of events) or rate (in case of processes) and the extent in loss of value it is expected to cause.
How soon? How bad? What scenario?
For each identified risk we need to think in terms of a scenario – from cause to effect – to be able to assess it.
Scenario

11. All the zillion causes and sources
If we picture the world of risk in our collections we have millions of causes for possible loss of value and millions of paths leading to an effect or loss. What we aim to do with the development of the risk maps is to literally map these pathways.
Some of them are more relevant than others, could be drawn thicker, printed bolder. They may be straight lines – direct cause/effect – or they may curve or pass through barriers.
All the zillion effects and losses

12. Cause or source Barrier 1 Barrier 2 Barrier 3 Object Effect or damage
If we zoom in on one of these pathways, we get the skeleton of a scenario with the components that we want to analyse:
Probability of the cause
How effective are barriers (mitigating factors)
What is the effect
Effect or damage

13. Which barriers are there?
How often?
Cause or source
Barrier 1
Which barriers are there?
Barrier 2
How effective are these barriers?
Barrier 3
Which objects damaged?
Object
How does damage look?
You have to ask yourself the questions:
How often will it occur?
Which barriers are there?
How effective are these barriers?
Which objects are damaged?
How does the damage look?
What is the loss of value to each affected object?
How much of collection value will be affected?
Effect or damage
What is the loss of value to each affected object?
How much of collection value will be affected?

14. So far I have shown you a map of one pathway – or a specific risk
So far I have shown you a map of one pathway – or a specific risk. Our idea of a risk map is that it helps identifying all relevant risks within an agent of deterioration. So we need to map all causes and their pathway that may affect our object or collection.
Let us look at “fire”. What would cause a burnt object, sooted, wet, collapsed, combusted…?
Object

15. Identification tool - causes
Unsafe practice
Arson
Fire in neighbourhood
Building systems
Small equipment
Jean Tétreault (CCI, speaker yesterday) in his article ‘Fire risk assessment for museum collections’ in J.CAC, 2008, has provided us with 5 categories of causes:
Unsafe use and unsafe practice: unsafe activities including smoking, using open fire, welding, etc.
Arson: fire originated by malicious intent.
Fire in the neighbourhood: including natural causes such as lightning.
Building system failure: malfunctioning of mechanical, electrical or heating system, HVAC system, inadequate or damaged wiring, for example wires chewed by rodents, etc.
Small apparatus failure: small cooking or heating apparatus, small boilers, etc. causing short-circuit.
We can give these a place on our map.
Fire
Identification tool - causes
Object

16. Identification – basis for analysis
Unsafe practice
Arson
Fire in neighbourhood
Operational - procedures
Building
Electronics - systems
Building systems
Small equipment
Operational - procedures
Building
Electronics - systems
Think of barriers from outside, to inside, to object.
Causes can be outside only, or also inside.
Some can only be outside or inside. Like fire in neighbourhood.
Fixing the roof (unsafe practice)
Welding inside, paint stripping inside, smoking (unsafe practice)
Light fixtures in showcase (small equipment)
Identification – basis for analysis
Object

17. Fire in neighbourhood 10%
Unsafe practice 32%
Arson 30%
Fire in neighbourhood 10%
Operational - procedures
Building
Electronics - systems
Building systems 20%
Small equipment 8%
Operational - procedures
Building
Electronics - systems
To analyse risks one needs applicable information or data. What is the probability? What will be the effect? What barriers are present? What is their effectiveness? What barriers are lacking?
There are several sources of information and data.
The first one is the collection itself. We can use condition surveys in combination with our experience. We can look for the evidence of damage and deduce its cause.
Statistics are a second source of information. Statistics deal especially with events, the rare and the occasional types of risk.
For the continuous processes that cause mild but accumulating change, we may use the results from scientific research into the rate of various degradation processes of materials.
Valuable quantitative data that will help assess the risk of fire is found in the article on museum fires by Jean Tétreault, I mentioned before. It gives a set of reference materials to help evaluate the potential collection losses due to a fire. These data are extremely useful to quantify probability and impact of museum fires, and as a consequence to quantify our risk map on fire.
According to Jean Tétreault’s research 32 % of museum fires in Canada in the period 1994 till 2004 was caused by unsafe practice. 30% by arson, 10% by fire in the neighbourhood, 20% by building systems and 8% by small equipment. The project not only deals with fires in Canada, but also in the USA and even Europe, but these are the percentages for Canada.
Analysis tool – “quantify”
Object

18. Zooming in on one barrier:
Unsafe practice
Arson
Fire in neighbourhood
O - Instructions, fire watch Surveillance rounds, keeping clean, extinguish agreement with neighbours
B - Fire resistant materials Fire resistant materials, physical barrier Fire wall, space
E - Detection, alarm Detection, alarm Detection, alarm ? ? ?
Next to data on likelihood and impact, information on options to reduce likelihood and/or impact – barriers - and their effectiveness is also needed to develop a useful risk map. What barriers are present? What is their effectiveness? What barriers are lacking? In other words what level of control is present?
Which barriers are there? How effective are these barriers?
What do they cost? (in five years from now)

19. Dia van CL s en/of tabel
The project of Jean Tétreault, on which his article is based, has not only resulted in a set of reference materials, but also resulted in establishing six fire Control Levels for museums. Control Levels are the sets of measures in place in a institution to prevent fires, to detect a fire in its early stage and to respond to a potential fire.
According to the results of his project, the likelihood of fire in a museum with CL 1 is one fire in 140 years, for CL 2 the likelihood is the same, for CL 3 it is one fire in 160 years and at CL 4 it is only one fire in 720 years! For CL 5 en 6 it is respectively one in 1500 and 2800 years. So the frequency of a fire occurring is estimated to be reduced by 80%! if the control is upgraded from level 3 to 4. This improvement is mainly due to the greater awareness of museum management and staff in institutions that established a Fire Safety Committee and as part of disaster preparedness, have a fire plan in place. Moreover at CL 4 an automatic fire suppression system is provided in collection storage rooms, whereas at CL 3 it is not. You should read the article.
Source: Jean Tétreault, Fire Risk Assessment for Collections in Museums, J.CAC vol. 33, 2008

20. Reducing risks…. Reduce Likelihood and/or Impact
Going back to risk map – where are barriers missing or weak?
Procedures - O
Technical solutions – B & E
Conservation
Emergency preparedness
To reduce the likelihood or the impact of a certain hazard, options to reduce risks can be found in procedures, technical solutions or conservation measures. Yet when the likelihood cannot be changed, for example in the case of natural disasters, emergency preparedness and response measures may help us to reduce the impact to the best of our ability when disaster strikes.
I have now showed a risk map example for fire, but we need to do this for all ten agents. ICN intends to collect and generate data and information for all agents and develop 10 risk maps in the upcoming years, to help heritage professionals to assess risks. The risk map for light (radiation) is already quite far.
Next week Jean Tétreault and I will explore the possibilities of a joint research project of CCI and ICN for ‘theft and vandalism’ similar to the Fire Project of CCI. Jean already has done some research on this subject. ICN may concentrate on the situation in the Netherlands or even Europe.
At ICN we think that the risk maps are a valuable tool for making the process of CRM a bit more user friendly. But obviously we would like to have tools that our colleagues can relate to. And we wonder weather you think this is a useful instrument.