53 conservation charters and documents and why you might need them

Charters, conventions, principles, codes of ethics - do you know them? Can you leverage them?

Jun 27, 2023

Hi friends!

Here I am again with an updated resource that I hope will help you in your day-to-day life.

I don’t know about other fields, but heritage conservation and collections care have a ton of charters, principles, guidelines, recommendations, and historical conventions which have shaped the way heritage professionals work today.

Some of them were born from the perceived need to protect specific types of heritage - so some are very specific, for example, archaeological material, underwater archaeological finds, architecture, or cultural objects in times of war. More recently, many guidelines are being issued to try to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the heritage field to address the climate crisis.

Others were born from a desire to make sure conservation professionals within and across countries were doing what they were supposed to - and no more.

Seen on Pinterest. The original “Ecce homo” (Behold man) is now funnily renamed “Ecce mono” (Behold monkey) in Spain. To be fair, this was not done by a trained conservator/restorer, but this is the kind of thing codes of ethics are aimed to stop.

I did not add intangible heritage for now, although I certainly can if there is enough demand for them (so let me know!).

For tangible heritage, I decided to try to bring together as many documents as I knew/could find to make your life easier. I have separated them into types and include:

Conventions
Charters
Declarations and manifestos
Recommendations
Principles
Professional organization codes of ethics
Other documents that don’t fit the above categories

Within those groups, I have ordered them chronologically except for professional organizations, where they are ordered alphabetically. I originally put a table of contents at the top to make it easier for you to look and then my website decided to break, so the table of contents is still there but the navigation links are pending. Sorry about that! I am working on finding a fix.

Still, I have kept the table without links and if you scroll down, all the items should have working links to the original documents - I checked them all very recently. If any of those links have stopped working (normally because websites get updated and URLs change), let me know and I will find a new working link.

Take me to the article!

Why might you need these documents?

Homework - You just need to get that essay done, I feel ya.
Research, publishing references, and teaching - What do documents look like in other countries? Which ones should students be most aware of?
Personal reference - How often do you check your professional ethics guidelines? No shame! But it’s probably worth a look every now and then.
Believe it or not, they can help you secure external funding if you use them as compelling reasons to back up your project.
Similarly, they can help you argue for internal funding if you point out to your administration that you are not following Charter X or properly adhering to the standards of your national professional organization.

The What did I miss section?

Just like I was happy for you to send me the educational programs I missed when I was compiling Master's degrees in conservation, please feel free to send me any charters, documents, guidelines, principles, etc. that I might not have included and which you think people use often, or even if you just think people should know about it.

What’s the point of this resource?

I am trying to make the blog on my website a place where you can find focused resources that take you exactly where you need to be to get the information you need - a sort of GLAM-specific day-to-day helpful place so you can avoid Google if you can and go straight to the meaty stuff. (GLAM = Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums)

Please let me know in the comments if you liked this resource and what other kinds of compilations would be useful to you - and I will make them (slowly 😅).

My Friend, The Conservator

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