Where to Start: Creating a Roadmap for Collection Storage Planning Through a Collaborative Values-Based Approach: A National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections project at The New York Public Library

Abstract

Collection storage is one of the most complex collaborations a museum, library, or archive can undertake. A high-level initial assessment can help overcome the inertia and complexity that overwhelms larger organizations due to the number of stakeholders, spaces, and collections. Large institutions need to rise above room-level preservation issues and focus on global, values-based thinking. With support from the Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections (SCHC) program of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), The Research Libraries of the New York Public Library (NYPL) designed a collaborative pre-planning exercise to inform long-range collection storage planning for over fifty storage areas within its Manhattan research centers. Pulling together experts in architecture, preservation environment, and sustainability to review NYPL’s storage needs in collaboration with an internal team of stakeholders, the project established foundations for ongoing values-based collaborative planning. Project design and considerations on synthesizing observations into recommendations are discussed in this article.

Keywords

library museum archives storage collections care case study collections management facilities preventive care

With over 88,000 square feet of collection storage space across more than fifty storerooms, The Research Libraries of The New York Public Library needed a roadmap for long-range collection storage planning that improves preservation, prepares for climate change, and incorporates sustainable design to reduce energy use. With support from the Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections (SCHC) program of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), NYPL designed a values-based pre-planning exercise called the Collection Storage Master Plan (CSMP) that coordinated a review of all storage areas with a cross-disciplinary internal team and three external facilitators from the fields of cultural heritage sustainability, architecture, and preservation environment. The collaborative design of this exercise—including facilities, security, sustainability, patron service, and collections staff perspectives—strengthened the resulting recommendations with additional benefits and values beyond mere risk avoidance or a purely collections preservation approach. This article discusses the challenges to long-range comprehensive storage planning the Project Director sought to address; assembly of the Project Team; assembly of the project work plan; and the analysis and synthesis of the Project Team’s observations into actionable recommendations within an efficient guide for long-range collection storage plan development.

NYPL serves as one of the world’s great resources for the advancement of knowledge and study of the humanities and, in particular, the history and culture of the United States. Its world-renowned holdings, 46 million research items as of June 30, 2020. Over fifty storage areas, each with its own challenges, store manuscripts, ephemera, books, photographs, film, recorded sound, paintings and sculpture, and more.

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (SASB, opened 1911, Carerre and Hastings) is the iconic masonry Beaux Arts structure at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The front portion of the building on Fifth Avenue houses offices, reading rooms, and special collection storage on the second and third floors. The subterranean Milstein Research Stacks is a two-floor storage facility under Bryant Park behind the main building (late 1980s, renovated 2016).

The Library for the Performing Arts (LPA, opened 1965, Gordon Bunshaft/Skidmore Owings and Merrill) is situated in the same building as the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and Clair Tow Theatre at Lincoln Center.

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (SCH, Landmark (McKim) and Schomburg (Bond Ryder Associates) buildings opened 1905 and 1979 respectively) combines multiple facilities at its campus at Malcolm X Blvd and 135th Street in Harlem.

Across these three buildings are more than 88,000 square feet of storage for the special collections alone.

The need for a pre-planning exercise emerged from review of past planning practice, as well as larger scale goals, such as climate resilience and improvement of sustainable practice. Traditionally, New York Public Library (NYPL) curatorial staff have managed collections locally, while funding for construction and operations has been centrally allocated. Each research center has its own risk profile, as well as its own stakeholder community and fundraising capacity. This has led to construction of collection storerooms of uneven preservation quality. Some storage areas have new compact shelving, while others have stationary furniture from the 1940s. Some storerooms do not have adequate dehumidification, while others have specialized HVAC equipment. Storage improvements have been planned incrementally and not within a broader strategic preservation plan, nor have they been planned with the increasing risks of climate change in mind.

NYPL recognized that sporadic or isolated storage planning by individual curatorial departments may not adequately leverage opportunities for sustainability and preservation inherent in the project, may not address equity of preservation funding, nor plan adequately for climate resilience. To address these issues, the project aimed to ask an interdisciplinary stakeholder group the following questions:

What studies need to happen to better support our planning efforts?

What repairs or retrofits could improve existing storage environments?

What opportunities might be available at existing sites for collection storage growth?

What design features and capacities are required to improve preservation and service?

What special environments are required for preservation of some formats?

What current storage spaces need to be discontinued due to risk?

Project Plan

Given the quantity of space to cover, the challenges, and the size of the award, the project was fashioned as an initial pre-planning exercise that could better inform later investments in planning exercises. The project created foundations for (1) establishing a collaborative future working group, (2) identifying values and goals to direct collection storage planning, and (3) identifying remedial activities to accomplish now to protect collections.

A high level assessment can help overcome the inertia and complexity that overwhelm larger organizations due to quantities of stakeholders, spaces, and collections. Large institutions need to rise above room-level preservation issues and focus on global, values-based thinking. These organizations have less difficulty in accessing preservation expertise, but have to navigate establishing priorities aligned with institutional goals and managing multiple stakeholders and their perspectives. With a global approach, collection storage planning can have greater impact for collection preservation, service, operations, and climate action.

Acknowledging the above, NYPL used the NEH SCHC Planning Grant Award to:

Establish a Project Team: Fund 3 consultants to tour collection storage areas with an internal team

Review Documentation: Review floorplans, envelope and HVAC optimization studies, environmental data, emergency data, and other documentation about the research centers.

Hold Introductory Stakeholder Conversations: Host virtual conversations between consultants and curatorial, facilities, and security staff at each building to get to know each other, gauge priorities, and document challenges.

Perform the Onsite Tour: walkthrough of collection storage areas to document conditions, make recommendations, and conceive of opportunities.

Bring Together the Plan: Synthesize findings to orient continued collection storage planning, including establishment of core values and highlighting institutional foundational recommendations that emphasize connections between preservation and climate action based on current preservation literature, standards, and guides.¹

These activities are discussed in more detail below.

Project Team

Project Team assembly benefitted from years of the Collection Management (CLMGT) program developing strong working relationships with Facilities and Security staff around ongoing issues of maintenance, collection protections, and emergency response. The Associate Director for Collection Management (as Principal Investigator), convened a team that represented library patron and service issues, preservation of access, facilities maintenance, security, and sustainability. Internal team members included the Director of Preservation and Collections Processing, the Associate Director for Collection Development, the Senior Manager for Energy and Sustainability, the Senior Collection Manager for SASB, and the Security Technology Manager. Each research center’s Building Manager joined the group during the tours to share their first-hand experiences in maintaining preservation environments and responding to emergencies. High-level staff, such as the Director for Facilities, the Director of Environmental Health & Safety, and select staff from Capital Planning joined the team for breakout conversations.

To facilitate and draw on additional perspectives in preservation environment, sustainability, and architecture for cultural heritage respectively, NYPL sought consultant expertise from Jeremy Linden, Linden Preservation Services; Sarah Sutton, Environment Culture Partners; and Jeff Weatherston, Weatherston Bruer Associates. Linden’s expertise informed the 2010–2013 IMLS-funded project “Research on Energy Saving Opportunities in Libraries” at NYPL as well as two preliminary environmental assessments for two NYPL research centers. Sutton kept climate action and sustainability planning centered in the project, by emphasizing the importance of smooth integration of the sustainable building and energy systems with daily operations and fulfillment of professional standards, and concern for future storm impacts on sites. Weatherston brought to the project his significant experience assessing facility requirements, assisting organizations in rationalizing activities between on-site and off-site storage, and designing spaces for collection preservation.

This interdisciplinary Project Team was assembled to create well-rounded recommendations as part of the project.

Documentation Review

The CLMGT program compiled floor plans, past envelope studies, program documents, and photographs of over fifty storage areas to share with the Project Team and orient them prior to the onsite week storage tours. When CLMGT was established in 2016, the group worked to identify, compile, and create where necessary this documentation to support preventive conservation, environment troubleshooting, and assessments such as the CSMP. This work took place over several years and has created a significant corpus of information about the built environment in which NYPL’s collections are stored. Building good relationships with Facilities, Capital Planning, and Security teams made the difference to create these resources for this review. For example, one resource shared with the Project Team includes information on over seventy HVAC units serving collection storage areas, which was collected through ongoing conversations and mechanical room tours with Facilities personnel. The establishment of the Energy program in 2020 spurred many recent envelope studies supported with City funding. NYPL also gave the Project Team consultants access to NYPL’s EclimateNotebook account to provide access to environmental data. The Project Director oriented the consultant team to these resources during a virtual kick-off meeting.

Introductory Stakeholder Conservations

While there are many interested parties in collection storage planning, there are physical limits to the number of people who can have a meaningful conversation in a small storage area. The Project Team also had to optimize use of available on-site time to assess facilities. In lieu of in-person greeting and orientation to each collection, the Project Team instead created a Curatorial Questionnaire based on one created by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation for the Collections Assessment for Preservation program and distributed it to over fifteen curators and interested parties. The consultants then joined three separate one-hour conversations with each of the three research centers’ curators. This helped the consultants hear directly from the curators about their top issues. It also created some rapport between the curators and the project, which because of its cross-institution design could appear to be making collection storage decisions apart from curatorial goals. Likewise, the Project Team also held one-hour sessions with each’s centers Facilities and Security teams to get to know them and their concerns prior to the onsite tour.

Onsite Tour

The key element to this assessment was bringing together the cross-disciplinary Project Team within NYPL’s several storage spaces to identify storage challenges and make recommendations for future integrated storage planning. The Project Director developed daily schedules that guided the team in reviewing all required spaces, and prevented too deep a dive on any single space. Plentiful time for conversation at the end of each day allowed the team to pull together ideas for inclusion in the final report. The final onsite day was largely unscheduled to support report planning and discussion of recommendations.

Bringing Together the Plan

Conversations held during the site visit and on follow-up calls allowed the Project Team to synthesize their observations into recommendations. The copious notes and photographs created by the Project Team are not in themselves an action plan for storage. Through guided discussion, the Project Team distilled from their observations the following types of guidance for ongoing storage planning:

Establishing Core Values: A helpful exercise supporting the recommendations was to establish Core Values for the project. The interplay between these values centered on collaboration in collection stewardship, mindfulness to climate action, and the ongoing proactive nature of preservation as they support the Library’s Mission to “inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities.” The Core Values listed below established a baseline of aligned goals for planning, investment, and success in the recommendations that followed:

Preservation is critical to Library Mission

Preservation is active

Preservation is collaborative

Skilled, empowered workers are the foundation of preservation and access

NYPL is a part of the global community

Foundational recommendations: These recommendations are high-level planning actions to create policy and strategic plans that will undergird preservation strategy writ large and long-term collection storage planning. Key suggestions included:

Sustaining the collaboration of the CSMP Project Team by creating a standing collection storage planning team to direct planning on an ongoing basis, especially to address evolving issues around climate resilience, energy use, and capacity.

Creation of a construction design standard for the research libraries and their specialized preservation environments was also called out. This step would create efficiencies and standardization during construction planning.

Collection storage planning approaches: This part of the Project Team’s report provides guidance for the future collection storage planning team, outlining recommended studies, renovations that could improve existing storerooms, transformative opportunities to build new space to support collection growth, and storerooms that should be phased out. Some examples include collection transport route studies by process engineers; opportunities for optimization of energy consumption; optimization and modularization of furniture for easier re-use, and strategic investment into existing underutilized square footage. These recommendations were supported by a call to integrate climate action and resilience planning into all storage assessments to support decision-making based on a changed climate future.

Recommended Action Items: The Project Team indicated assessments, repairs, and actions that might be undertaken to improve collection safety in the short-term, at the institutional, building, and room levels. Recommendations in this section were expansive, from areas requiring repair, to HVAC system assessments, to building envelope improvements to better protect the structure and internal environments.

Project Challenges and Benefits

In any conversation about change and the future, there can be both shared excitement about tantalizing opportunities for the future, as well as resistance to change. Like any assessment project, identification of a substandard condition can feel like criticism, rather than structuring a collaborative way forward. The project had certain challenges and benefits that are worth outlining for any organization considering initiating a collection storage planning effort.

Momentum for planning based on fostering relationships: The project benefitted from established relationships between collection and facilities functions, allowing the project to advance quickly to establish recommendations. The space created by the project allowed for collaborative thinking about global, values-centered goals among a group of people tasked with envisioning, creating, and caring for collection storage.

Intensive distillation of observations: The project relied heavily on staff time to plan the visit, collect observations from the consultants, facilitate findings among the Project Team, edit everyone’s contributions, and create the final report. This was made somewhat easier by the Project Director’s extensive experience in collections assessment and preventive conservation. Other organizations may need to factor in additional expertise and/or staff time to facilitate the project.

Integrated vs. dedicated departmental collection storage areas: There is still a consistent determination, as evidenced through curatorial questionnaires, to have dedicated storage space for each curatorial unit, rather than seeking out shared storage solutions that concentrates and optimizes energy-intensive preservation environments and protective solutions in compact footprints. Administrators may need to identify incentives and facilitate compromise to convince curators that consolidated storerooms are an option for improving preservation environments in an era of energy use reduction mandates.

Increasing discussion about climate resilience and action in stewardship: The project created a new space for discussion of climate resilience and sustainability goals among collection staff and curatorial activities. This is increasingly important as regulations the institution needs to plan at an organization level for climate resiliency based on site risks particularly surface flooding from storms overwhelming city infrastructure, and will need to comply with increasing climate action regulations, such as Local Law 97 in New York City, which requires reduction of “emissions produced by the city’s largest buildings 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.”² The motivation to have collections stored close at hand is a logical one, given the shared desire to create a good patron experience with expedient service. Comprehensive planning for storage can strengthen setting consistent expectations among our patrons, as well as make for good stories about stewardship.

Increased partnership between Facilities and Collections staff. One of the greatest benefits of the project was fostering this relationship through storage tours and discussion. Aligned goals were revealed, and it was beneficial for collections staff to understand where building maintenance obstacles complicate preservation goals. Important outcomes that grew out of this partnership include the recommendation of specialized construction design criteria for the Research Libraries specifying preservation environment standards, and creation of preservation commissioning guidelines to address hand-off issues between construction and facilities staff.

Conclusion

Collection storage, and how it supports access, is one of the most mission-supportive efforts a museum, library, or archive can undertake. Many collections professionals find themselves involved in a storage planning effort at some point in their career. Projects may involve tasks such as selecting new cabinets or installing security cameras, but these discrete activities may not address broader concerns such as worker safety, ease of maintenance, aging infrastructure, climate change, life cycle analysis, improved patron service, equity in preservation investment, or enhanced understanding of total cost of operations. The choices we make extend well beyond the storeroom. A unified, strategic, institutional-level approach to collection storage is required.³ A successful planning process is conversant with educational and inspirational missions, as well as the prevention of damage, management of capacity, and the advancement of climate action commitments.⁴ Organizations are embracing a responsibility toward climate action as part of collection storage planning as governments adopt laws to adapt new technologies to reduce energy usage.⁵ Increased public demand for collections stewardship accountability increasingly prompts collecting organizations to be more transparent, such as through social media and programming.⁶ Institutions increasingly recognize that the selection of energy-intensive preservation environments, storeroom finishes, and cleaning methods can either contribute to progressive climate action, or accelerate climate change.

This project was created to tackle the burden and the challenges of 125 years of collection storage growth at a large multi-building world-renowned research institution. While organizations may differ significantly in size, collections, mission, location, and risk profile, the people trying to protect and preserve collections through planning are similar. Centering values in a collaborative process reinforced the project team’s commitment to–and emphasized the potential of–prioritizing sustainable approaches.

The NYPL Research Libraries’ Collection Storage Master Plan project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

The author wishes to thank William Stingone, Director of Preservation, NYPL; Jeremy Linden, Linden Preservation Services; Sarah Sutton, Principal, Environment Culture Partners; and Jeff Weatherston, Principal, Weatherston Bruer Associates, for their valued insights and suggestions in the preparation of this article.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: NYPL Research Libraries’ Collection Storage Master Plan project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

ORCID iD

Rebecca Fifield

1.

For example, ISO 11799:2015: Information and documentation–Document storage requirements for archive and library materials and ISO 18934:2011 Imaging materials–Multiple media archives–Storage environment. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 909: Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties: Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Museums, Galleries, Archives, and Libraries Chapter 24 (2019). ISO TR19815:2018 Information and documentation–Management of the environmental conditions for archive and library collections. Society for American Archivists Archival and Special Collections Facilities: Guidelines for Archivists, Librarians, Architects, and Engineers (2009). Museum and Art Gallery Lighting Committee of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America Recommended Practice for Museum Lighting ANSI/IES RP-30-17 (2017); Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage (2019).

2.

“Local Law 97,” New York City Sustainable Buildings, available at: accessed March 9, 2023, (accessed March 9, 2023).

3.

Dieter Fenkart-Fröschl and Christopher A. Norris, “Building Internal Partnerships for Collection Care,” in Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage (New Haven, CT, and Washington, DC: Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, American institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Smithsonian Institution, The George Washington University Museum Studies Program, ), 25–42.

4.

Jonathan Ashley-Smith, “Challenges of Managing Collection Environments,” Conservation Perspectives, 33, no. 2 (Fall 2018): 4–9, available at: (accessed May 29, 2024).

5.

In New York City, this is Local Law 97, adopted in 2019 as part of the Green New Deal. It reads “The goal is to reduce the emissions produced by the city’s largest buildings 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.”

6.

“Climate Change in Museums, Part I: Content and Sustainability: A 2022 Annual Survey of Museum Goers Data-Story,” American Alliance of Museums, available at: https://wilkeningconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/climate_change_1_-_data_story_1.pdf (accessed May 29, ).

Author Biography

Rebecca Fifield has over 30 years of experience working with cultural heritage, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 2016, she joined The New York Public Library as the first Head of Collection Management in the Preservation and Collection Processing Division. She holds an M.A. in Museum Studies from The George Washington University, where she was a National Endowment for the Humanities Collection Care Administrator Training Program Fellow. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Conservation. She has written and presented on collection care, emergency preparedness, collection stewardship, and outreach for the American Institute for Conservation, the American Alliance of Museums, the Association of Registrars and Collection Specialists, the Association for Preservation Technologies International, the Alberta Museum Association, the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, and the NYC Office of Emergency Management. Her work appears in Museum Management and Curatorship, Collections, Collection Forum, Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage, and Help! An Emergency Preparedness Manual for Museums, 2^nd Edition.

References

American Alliance of Museums. “Climate Change in Museums, Part I: Content and Sustainability: A 2022 Annual Survey of Museum Goers Data-Story.” https://wilkeningconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/climate_change_1_-_data_story_1.pdf (accessed May 29, 2024).

Ashley-Smith

Jonathan

. 2018. “Challenges of Managing Collection Environments.” Conservation Perspectives 33 (2): 4–9. https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/newsletters/pdf/v33n2.pdf (accessed May 29, 2024).

Fenkart-Fröschl

Dieter

Norris

Christopher A.

2019. “Building Internal Partnerships for Collection Care.” In Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage, edited by Elkin

Norris

C. A.

, 25–42. New Haven, CT, and Washington, DC: Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, American institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Smithsonian Institution, The George Washington University Museum Studies Program.

New York City Sustainable Building. “Local Law 97.” https://www.nyc.gov/site/sustainablebuildings/ll97/local-law-97.page (accessed March 9, 2023).