NCS Membership Growth - we have gone from 15 members in 2013 to 72
members now and still growing, including 32 Full members working with us
an average of 4 days on-site per year. Our members cover the whole of
the mainland UK, from Perth to Falmouth, Bangor to Southampton, with
growing membership in the North of England after a slow start and many
in London. We hope to work with a first Northern Ireland member soon.
In addition to our founding Directors we now have three members of staff
and five Accredited Associates helping to support members and projects,
with two studios in London and Oxfordshire and two further sites
available to us if we need them in the Northern and Western regions.
NCS Collaborative Storage Scheme - the storage scheme at Upper Heyford,
Oxfordshire, managed by Restore plc has been going for nearly 18 months
now and is proving very successful. 20 institutions have so far sent
collections to be stored with us, some ongoing as their materials
continue to arrive over the coming months and years. We are now caring
for 1550 cubic metres of museum, archive and library collections, that
is the equivalent of about 15 kilometres of archive storage, just over
half the capacity of the first storage repository with 5 more to use if
we need to. The environment is proving stable and manageable across the
seasons with very little energy required to meet PD5454 clause 4.2.2
13-20C and 35-60% RH. Institutions are using it both for long term
storage rental and for short term expedient during building projects
(the price is the same). Institutions at the site include professional
institute libraries, local authority record offices, national
collections, public museums and galleries. We have plenty of space so
do consider joining the scheme if you don't have enough!
NCS Environmental Monitoring - our Free monitoring scheme, sponsored
this year by Deepstore Ltd, has been very successful indeed. 42
institutions are currently benefiting from free monitoring in one or
more locations. We anticipate launching a second round in the spring
next year so let us know if you are interested and need help.
NCS Collaborative Cold Storage for Photographic Collections - the
planned Open Meeting to discuss developing a freezer storage scheme will
be hosted at the Royal College of Art, London on the 9th of January.
Thank you to all of the institutions that have expressed an interest in
attending and working with us to design a scheme, we will be writing to
you all very soon to confirm details. Anyone interested in being added
to the list for inclusion in communications and development for a
scheme, do write to us.
NCS Website Members' Area - the new members' area of our website should
be launched very soon, the designs and page coding have been completed
and we are setting up the cloud storage delivery of members'
information. All members will have password access to their data,
images, reports etc and will see regularly updated environmental data
from our Heyford stores.
NCS and Magna Cartas - as advisers to Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury
Cathedral for the conservation of their Magna Cartas of King John, 1215,
we have been busy helping them in planning for the British Library and
Parliament octo-centenary celebrations next year, as well as setting up
exhibitions in the USA (currently Lincoln's is at the Library of
Congress) and advising on the 2015 re-display of these two charters. As
well as the 1215s we have been helping Hereford Cathedral with the US
display of their 1217 Henry III and most recently assisted London
Metropolitan Archives with their 1297 in the Lord Mayor's Show. If
you're interested in the care of these great charters, keep an eye on
our website where we will soon have a page dedicated to this work.
If any of the above interests you do please contact us at
[log in to unmask]
Chris Woods
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