ICOM MUSEUM STORAGE Current Situation and New Challenges – International Conference

This international conference on the issue of museum storage around the world, organised jointly by ICOM's Working Group on Collections in Storage, the International Committee for Museum Architecture and Technology (ICAMT) and the Sorbonne nouvelle, follows on from the international survey of museum storage launched by the Working Group, the results of which were shared by ICOM in May 2024.

The technology devoted to the development of storage and the preservation of collections has continued to develop, both in terms of the architecture of spaces and innovation in preventive conservation, particularly in terms of adaptation to climate change. It is in this particular context that, following the Resolution of the 34th General Assembly, ICOM set up a working group on collections in storage in March 2022, made up of members from the various national and international committees of ICOM. An international survey project was launched in 2023, aimed at taking stock of the situation of reserves throughout the world. This report is not an end in itself, but the beginning of a discussion that ICOM intends to pursue, by inviting professionals and researchers to discuss the current situation of museum storage around the world, the communication and interpretation actions that are organised around them, the technological transformations and new types of storage that have been set up, as well as their possible evolution in the coming years and the means best suited to meeting the challenges of tomorrow.

The aim of this conference is to bring together professionals and researchers to discuss the issue of museum storage, to debate the current state of this sector at the heart of the museum system, its evolution and the main challenges associated with it, so that ICOM can best respond to these issues. It will bring together nearly a hundred speakers, in plenary sessions and parallel sessions. The themes addressed by the Conference, which was advertised in the call for papers and attracted more than 200 proposals, 80 of which were selected, are as follows:

1. Museum storage around the world: the state of play
2. (Re)organisation and solutions for the management of reserves
3. Mediation and communication around reserves
4. New reserves, new challenges
5. The place of collections in the museums of tomorrow

Find more information here: https://icom.museum/en/news/conference-reserves-current-situation-and-new-challenges/