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JOINT GLOBAL ASSESSMENT PROJECT, 2001
Cynthia Ball and Michael Gourlie
The Canadian Council of Archives (CCA) uses the "assess, plan, act" approach to preservation management. The first stage is a global assessment to examine institutional policies, holdings, and facilities to identify preservation priorities that an archival repository must address to provide the best care possible for its holdings. With financial assistance from the federal government through the National Archives of Canada and the CCA, the Archives Society of Alberta coordinated a project in 2001 to assist seven institutions in undertaking their global assessments.
The preservation assessments were a joint undertaking between an archival institution, the person completing the survey work and, in this case, the Archives Society of Alberta, which wrote the grant and coordinated the overall project. Once the ASA determined which institutions wanted to have a preservation assessment done, conservator Cynthia Ball developed a timeline and budget based on the amount of funds available, the number of organizations participating and the size and nature of their archival holdings. This year, during Archives Odyssey Tour 2001, as it was fondly called, seven assessments were completed. A group approach to these assessments allowed certain costs to be shared, such as the rental of environmental monitoring equipment from the Canadian Conservation Institute and some travel expenses.
The global preservation assessments included: the completion of a pre-visit questionnaire by Archives' staff; on-site visits by the assessment conservator ranging in length from one to eight days depending on the volume of holdings at the institution; and finally the development of a written report by the assessment conservator based on the data collected. The survey tool or pre-visit questionnaire used for the preservation assessments was The Conservation Assessment Guide for Archives, written by Jane Dalley for the Canadian Council of Archives. The questionnaire provided the conservator with information about the Archives' objectives for the assessment, facilities, holdings, size, location and preservation activities. The assessment was not intended to be a "report card" type of process; instead, staff members at the archival institutions were encouraged to view the conservator as a resource person.
The survey tool provided standardized guidelines for assessing the effect of archival policies, procedures, facilities, storage, environment, disaster management and staff members on an archives' holdings. It was not a collections survey for providing a detailed evaluation of the condition of an archives' holdings. Institutions were also asked to forward any background material about their archives that would help the assessor to develop a complete picture of how the archives functions, their priorities and the condition of holdings.
The questionnaire provided the first pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The on-site portion of the assessments began with an orientation tour of the building and the holdings. Once the building and the environmental conditions being maintained there were recorded, the storage enclosures and some aspects of the condition of the holdings were examined. The holdings assessed were chosen based on priorities identified by archives' staff-what holdings receive the most use, and what archival records they were most concerned about.
Once the on-site assessment work was completed, the information collected was used to write a practical and comprehensive report for each institution visited. The reports noted both positive accomplishments as well as areas that needed improvement, summarized priorities for preservation activities and, hopefully, helped to define what the next steps in the institution's preservation programme might be. Each section of the report outlines general preservation principles related to a topic, provides an overview of the assessment findings at the institution, and concludes with recommendations.
Archives' staff are then encouraged to develop a planning document known as a conservation strategy based on the recommendations from the assessment, their own priorities and current preservation standards. A conservation strategy planning document lays out a calendar of activities organizing the recommendations of the assessment, based on the resources of the archives. Time and cost estimates for the recommendations should be included where possible, and timelines developed for projects. Short-term, medium-term and long-term goals should be set. Preservation activities should initially focus on those actions that will have a broad, positive impact across the entire archives.
The essence of archival preservation planning is resource allocation (human, physical and monetary) to preserve archival records and their information content. A preservation assessment forms the foundation of an archives' ongoing preventive conservation programme and is a cost-effective, pro-active means of caring for archival holdings.
The 2002 Preservation Assessment Tour is in the works. Three institutions have agreed to participate this year. It won't be long before every archives in Alberta has had this stage of the preservation planning process completed!
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