National Occupational Standards in
Archaeological Practice

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AC6 Store items

AC6.2 Control the environment to preserve and protect items

Performance Required

This will involve:

1. Monitoring and maintaining the environment of items, and evaluating their effectiveness.
2. Ensuring schedules and procedures for monitoring and maintaining the environment of items are correctly implemented
3. Identifying as quickly as possible any evidence of instability or change in the items and any other indications that the environment is not suitable, and taking appropriate action
4. Assessing accurately the resources to implement appropriate action and passing details to the relevant people
5. Complying at all times with health and safety procedures

Occupational Context

1. Monitoring
   • Through observation
   • Through measurement
   • Through data analysis
2. Environment
   • temperature
   • humidity
   • light
   • air quality
   • protection from pests
   • protection from shock/ vibration
   • use of biological and chemical agents
3. Effectiveness
   • efficient protection and maintenance of condition
   • in terms of costs and benefits of resources and their outputs
   • in relation to strategy expectations, targets and milestones
4. Appropriate action
   • removal from/adjusting environment
   • improving monitoring, observation, inspection and measurement procedures
5. Relevant people
   • supervisors / managers
   • professional experts / consultants
   • maintenance and support staff
   • researchers

Knowledge Requirements

You need to know about:

• How the environment can be accurately monitored, and the principal factors to monitor
• The indications that an environment is not suitable for the items
• The action that can be taken if the environment is not suitable for the item
• Who are the appropriate people to inform of any problems
• The health and safety implications of the available treatments
• The implications of an inappropriate environment

Required Skills

You should demonstrate:

• Observation skills
• Record-keeping and data analysis skills

Evidence Required

You should provide evidence that you can control the environment to preserve and protect items

The candidate should be questioned, based upon the documentation provided, to explore how they

• monitor and evaluate the environmental protection of items.

Evidence Rules

• The candidate should produce evidence of storing both stable and unstable items on at least two contrasting sites.

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Today's date: 31/7/2010
This page last updated: 6/8/2007 11:58