Conservation risk assessment: a strategy for managing resources for preventive conservation

Ideally, practitioners of preventive conservation should be able to quantify all risks to a collection and determine the most cost-effective means of reducing overall risk to that collection. This paper describes an attempt by the Canadian Museum of Nature to assess the risks to collections. Currently, the information required to produce accurate estimates of the magnitude of many risks is lacking. Nevertheless, simply attempting the exercise among a group of collections care staff produces several valuable results. Staff are made aware of the range of risks affecting collections. For certain risks, low-cost or no-cost methods of reducing the risk can be identified immediately. Conservation can use information about the uncertainties of estimates to develop improved methods for documenting damage and can develop research plans that address priority issues. Finally, the information obtained, while limited in accuracy, is coherent and comparable between diverse collections. This enables managers to make informed decisions on allocating resources for preventive conservation.