page_title: Collections maintenance
section_title: Organization
hierarchical_section_title: Collections maintenance / Storage and Upkeep / Organization
caption_attribution_description: English: Archival collections in Robinson Collection at the Toowoomba Local History Library
context_page_description: Collection maintenance is a form of collections care that consists of the day-to-day hands on care of collections and cultural heritage. The primary goal of collections maintenance is to prevent further decay of cultural heritage by ensuring proper storage and upkeep including performing regular housekeeping of the spaces and objects and monitoring and controlling storage environments. Collections maintenance is closely linked to collections care and collections management. The professionals most influenced by collections maintenance include collection managers, registrars, and archivists.
context_section_description: It is essential that collections have an organizational system to store and house objects. The system may be grounded in relations to size, material, cultural or historical grouping as it makes sense to the collection. Structured organizational systems make identifying object locations straightforward and consistent which will help locating and returning an object to its proper space.
  Part of a system is the use of “successive layers of protective envelopes and enclosures.”  Types of “layers” include nearly everything from storage spaces, padded shelves, non-acidic archival boxes and individual packaging. Each new layer should provide further protection by creating a microclimate buffer between an object and environmental fluctuations, light, dust and pollutants.
caption: Example of two "layers;" the boxes and the shelves they rest upon
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