The BEV*ARV Project; the Preservation Conditions of Museum Collection Storages in Denmark.

A national survey on the preservation condition in Danish state subsidised museums’ storages was conducted in 2022-23. The collected data has been anonymized and is open for further study and research.

The survey consisted of 25 questions (BEV.ARV_Spørgeskema) responded during physical inspections of the storages. 103 museums participated in the survey, 350 buildings and more than 850 storage rooms were physically inspected, and the results recorded. Upon inspection, the preservation/degradation risks addressed in each question were rated according to an A-B-C-D scale. Character A is the best (no degradation risk), D is the lowest (high degradation risk). A guideline (BEV.ARV_Svarvejledning) was used to assist uniform evaluations of the storage conditions.

The survey covered museums with art collections, cultural history collections and natural history collections. The indoor climate over one calendar year was recorded in around five hundred of the storage rooms.

The collected and uploaded data contain information on the condition of the buildings used for storages, the condition of the storage rooms and the objects stored therein, and how the museums manage and control their collection storage rooms. The survey method has been developed for future inspections and comparative reports of the storage conditions of museum collections.

The files included in the datasets have been used in the report to the Ministry of Culture. Furthermore, the data has been applied for making individual museum storage reports with scores and characters for each storage facility. The data is available in Danish only.

Content of the folder Klimadata:

The file BEV.ARV_2024.04_Dataoversigt provides information regarding type of museum and whether climate data from the storages have been collected or not.  

The Excel files (M00X-files), one per museum, provides the climate data (Relative Humidity, RH % and Temperature, T °C) from the individual storages, naming corresponding to those applied in the file BEV.ARV_2024.04_Anonymiseret_Raadata.csv

Content of the folder Rapporter_Supp.Info:

The file BEV.ARV_2024.04_Anonymiseret_Raadata.csv holds the complete inspection results for all museum storages (the buildings and their rooms).

The file BEV.ARV_2024.04_Karaktermodel+Analyse contains analyses carried out and used in the overall report to the Ministry of Culture.

For completeness, the report to the Ministry of Culture (BEV.ARV_Slutrapport), an example of an individual museum storage report ( BEV.ARV_Magasinrapport_Museum_X) the 25 survey questions (BEV.ARV_Spoergeskema) and the response guidelines (BEV.ARV_Svarvejledning), all in Danish, are included.