Series editors' preface - Wood Tools

280 Conservation of Furniture
may run during the course of fire fighting.
Siting storage areas and shelving as far as
possible away from pipelines, drains, waste
lines and known sources of leaks helps to
eliminate or reduce another major source of
potential damage. It is preferable for objects
to be covered while in storage. Materials used
for storage and display should be selected
which are unlikely to leach contaminants into
the objects when the materials themselves
become wet. For example, buffered cards and
tissues are not recommended. Having supplies
of waterproof covers available in areas close
to objects will help to ensure that they can be
quickly protected in an emergency. Although
transferring risk to an insurer is designed to
make recovery possible rather than to prevent
disaster it may play a part in prevention since
the insurer is likely to be a competent assessor
of risk able to suggest measures that will
be required before accepting the risk.
Preparation
Preparation should aim to minimize the potential
risk to people and ensure that the organization
is able to adapt rapidly to any potential
new situation. This includes the development
of robust systems for normal day to day use,
particularly those for communication and
control. A regular maintenance schedule will
help to ensure that all heating, lighting, ventilating
and drainage systems are in excellent
working order and that auxiliary systems are
available for communication, lighting and
power. In addition, good systems should be
in place to deliver information about people,
the building, other organizations, objects,
materials, equipment and so forth. An
emergency control centre should be established
that has its own phone, the number of
which is widely known. This needs to be big
enough to contain the people and equipment
needed in dealing with an emergency and
furnished with access to all the necessary
information.
Control centre staff should hold a list of the
names, addresses, telephone numbers and
roles of all those who might be required in
the event of disaster either in or out of
working hours. For larger organizations this
may best be held in machine-readable form so
that a single central up-to-date copy can be
maintained and identical printed copies circulated
– normally in the form of a tree in which
one person calls two other people who each
call two more and so on. The list would
normally include the fire service, police,
ambulance, clients, gas technicians, plumbers,
security specialists, electricians, conservators,
curators, the engineering team responsible for
the building and all senior staff. The list needs
to be kept fully up-to-date with the home and
work numbers of all relevant personnel. The
control centre would also be expected to hold
the numbers of first-aiders; if there is injury to
personnel then they will contact them and
direct them to the injured personnel. Within
the disaster team responsibility for planning,
training, co-ordinating recovery, decisionmaking
and call-out must have been clearly
defined to avoid confusion and duplication.
All these people need to know the building
and the collection and have rehearsed their
strategy for response to fire, flood and storm
under conditions that are as realistic as possible
and preferably in the dark. They should
know which objects to save, how and where
to move them and what to do if time is very
short or if only the fire brigade has access. As
a conservator you should not feel comfortable
unless this plan exists and that it has been
rehearsed and shown to work.
The local fire prevention officer will be
required to assist with prevention, fire fighting,
salvage and rehearsal. The local crime
prevention officer may assist with surveillance
of premises and rescued objects. Both the
police and fire service representatives need to
be familiar with the layout of the building and
the vulnerable and valuable nature of collections.
In any institution, it is essential that all staff
are familiar with staff emergency procedures,
copies of which should be freely available to
staff throughout the building. Staff can help by
being constantly on the look-out for potential
hazards (not only within their own areas). Staff
involved with collections should be aware of
the location and contents of their stores and
galleries and potential hazards within these
areas such as water pipes and electrical
supplies. Emergency equipment, including,
tools, materials equipment and means of easily
transporting these to areas where they may be
required, should be ready on constant standby