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The National Conservation Service is very pleased to announce the fourth and last of four conferences called 'Passive Aggressive?' - Changing the Climate in Archival and Museum Storage.  The first two events, one hosted at The National Archives (UK) and the second at National Library of Wales hosted by CyMAL, during July were very well attended and well received.  All four are being generously sponsored by Bruynzeel Storage Systems Ltd, in order to make the conferences free to delegates.

We are delighted that The National Gallery of Ireland have offered to partner with us as host for this conference, which will be held in their lecture theatre, in Merrion Square on the 25th of October 2018 from 10:00 until 17:00.

The conferences all aim to present and discuss the manner in which the new British and European standards for heritage conservation urge institutions to move away from air-conditioned storage and display and towards sustainable, low energy, passive means of managing internal climates.  The new EN standard, EN16893:2018, is for all types of heritage storage and display buildings, so for the first time staff and designers of existing and new buildings in the museums and galleries arena have access to a comprehensive standard, something that only archives and libraries have hitherto enjoyed.  The old archive storage building standard BS5454 has now been formally withdrawn, replaced by this new EN standard.  A brief summary of the new standard, and its complimentary British Standard BS4971:2017 on conservation of archive and library collections, can be found here:

and here:

At the conference, we will hear about the standards themselves; a comparison of passive methods and air conditioned systems and why passive control can be a viable alternative in existing buildings as well as in new designs.  There will be a series of case studies from archivists, museum custodians, conservators, managers, architects and engineers who have been involved in switching off air conditioning in existing buildings and the results and progress they made; refurbishments that introduce passive approaches, and new building designs that seek to change the way we plan the long term care of collections with lower energy use.  A sector panel will give us the chance to hear from representatives of policy-making and influencing organisations addressing how their organisations use standards to evaluate the success of institutions as these new standards begin to take root.  A detailed programme will be sent out as soon as it is complete.

There is no charge for delegates to attend.  If you would like to come, please email Lisa at [log in to unmask], providing your name and institution/organisation.