Over the years, a number of security approaches have been developed in managing national museums and in limiting the chances of cultural properties loss. Also, a lot of acts from outside our museums by-passes and contravene museums security policies, practices and procedures. Many safeguarding policies for the protection of cultural objectives and properties have been implemented but barriers to security of museums, personnel as well as cultural properties have persisted (Wang and Yongchareon, 2020).
In this report, Nlewedim examines preventive controls as a solution to proper and effective security of Nigeria’s cultural heritage.
Security can be said to mean freedom from or resilience against potential harm from external forces. Beneficiary of security are persons and social groups, objects, institutions, ecosystem and any other (Wikipedia). It entails the state of being secure, freedom from danger , job loss and others. Security, further describes measures taken to guard against espionage or sabotage, crime, attack on an organization or department (Oxford Dictionary, 2018).
Cultural heritage is an expression of the way of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values, Cultural heritage (ICOMOS, 2002). As part of human activity, cultural heritage produces tangible representations of the value systems, beliefs, traditions and lifestyle.
Cultural heritage is a wide concept. It can be distinguished via: Buildings, townscapes and archaeological remains, natural environment such as rural landscapes, coast and shores, agricultural heritage. – Artifacts, Books, documents, objects, pictures etc. One driving force behind all definitions of cultural heritage is that it is a human creation intended to inform (Feather, 2006).
Preventive Controls and Museums Environment
The huge value of Museum objects places a high premium on their protection. Preventive control of these valuable cultural heritages is a wise option. Security controls are technical or administrative safeguard of objects from loss or theft of any kind. These are controls designed to keep errors or irregularities from occurring in the first place. They are usually built into internal control systems and require a major effort in the initial decision and implementation stages especially in developing economies and their Museums.
Preventive internal controls can be put in place to keep errors and irregularities from happening. They range from passwords to pins. Other preventive controls include testing for electrical accuracy, backing up computer data during testing of employees, employers screening and training programmes, segregation of duties, vocation, obtaining approval before processing a transaction and having physical control over assets (locking money and documents and items in a safe etc.) Preventive control activities comprises of the policies, procedures and mechanisms that help ensure museum management responds to reduced risk identification during the assessment process. These controls include actions taken to minimize these potential risks.
There are several preventive controls available for our museums to mitigate deterioration and damage to cultural properties through the formation of policies and procedures for the following:
– Appropriate rate environmental conditions, handling and maintenance procedures for storage, exhibition, packaging and transport.This extends the life of cultural property.It also deter, reduce or eliminate the need for interceptive treatment.
Museum Personnel, visitors and vendors should keep space, galleries, exhibition halls and office free from food and drinks.
– Good museum galleries keeping (both public and non-public spaces) should avoid insects as they pose the greatest risk to museum’s cultural collections. They breed and are able to survive on minute quantities of organic materials on debris on museum environments accumulating from food crumbs and other related substances.
– Dusts also come into the enclosed halls and storage areas.
– Treatments with disinfectants are an appropriate long term strategy.
– Managers of museums must adopt procedures and protocols to protect cultural objects.
– Museums must not use carpets in collection spaces. Wooden floor boards can act as run-ways for pests. They can increase the incidence of infestation such as larva casing or trash.
– Reproduction fabrics should be carefully selected to avoid pests and their infestation.
– Environment should not harbor or attract pests, insects etc. and must be dry and treated regularly.
– Preventive freezing: Freezing is considered safe for museums as curators can adopt freezing collections as much as public power can allow. Managers of museums should ensure that they do all in their power to reduce infestation. This can be done when moving collections to new space and museums.
The need for preventive controls of our objects and cultural properties cannot be over emphasized as it has been proven to be a good responsive measure to nip the risks in the bud. Governments and custodians of our cultural heritage and museums should adopt preventive control measures to reduce security risks and threats as early as they manifest.