The AICCM Sustainable Collections wiki will be up and ‘running’ by late September 2019 —although less running and more a ‘wiki-in-waiting’ until we complete the necessary upgrade to our website. But in preparation for the AICCM National Conference on 13–15 November, the Sustainable Collections Committee is keen to get as much content on-line to help inform discussions and support a common general knowledge base around sustainability issues for conservation and collections care. By aggregating information, key literature and local case studies, the Sustainable Collections wiki aims to be a learning hub for conservators to share ideas, knowledge and experiences as they deal with growing sustainability issues and plan collection care responses and transition strategies against these.
There are several helpful conservation and collections-focused sustainability resources already on-line including:
- AIC Sustainable Practices wiki
- Sustainability in Conservation
- ICOM Sustainability WG
- AMaGA Sustainability
The AICCM Sustainable Collections wiki is not intended to replicate content already available through these sites but, rather, augment the broader international discussions with locally developed content, perspective and case studies. For example, the SCC has adopted a broad definition of sustainability for the wiki that incorporates a brief general overview on approaches to economic, social, cultural and environmental sustainability and so includes references to Australian policies, climate projections and research to support AICCM membership in their day-to-day decision-making.
In highlighting sustainability considerations and offering practical options to help members develop their own relevant approaches to implementing and innovating more sustainable solutions, the wiki has been set up with the following orienting themes:
- Resourcing conservation including collection needs assessments and life-cycle planning
- Greening conservation practices
- Transitioning collection environments to meet changes in technology, environmental and funding
- Resilience and disaster planning
- Access and engagement
- Foresight and environmental scanning for anticipated change
As a wiki, we intend for new content to be created and existing content to be edited by others interested in ensuring we are sharing recent, reputable and relevant information. Until the website upgrade including wiki plug-in is complete, we are using initials to track authorship and moderation of amendments. So please consider checking out the wiki and filling in gaps, adding case studies or critiquing existing content. Any submissions should be made to webeditor@aiccm.org.au.