In addition to these web pages, the following sites are useful sources of advice:
Technical Advice
Managing Mixed Collections Guidance For Archives, The National Archives – 2021 (PDF, 2.6MB)
Provides general advice on the care of mixed collections. See Section 5.9 for hazards, and p,79 for general information on mould.
Mould outbreaks in archive and library collections, R.E Childs, British Library Preservation Centre – revised 2011
Provides short general guidance.
The Enemy in Archives : Managing Mould, Catherine Firth – 2021
A short blog by the conservator at the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York on how they manage mould in their collections.
Funding Advice
Information about sources of funding for acquiring, cataloguing, and preserving archives can be found on our Grants and Funding pages. This includes our Records at Risk Grants and Resilience Grants programmes.
The Records at Risk Grants programme is delivered in collaboration with the British Records Association and the Business Archives Council, to provide support for urgent interventions to save significant physical and digital records facing immediate peril, across the UK. It provides grants of up to £5,000, to protect records of cultural and research value from premature destruction or prolonged neglect.
Our Resilience Grants programme provides grants of up to £20,000, to empower the archive sector to find and develop sustainable solutions that enable change and develop organisational resilience.
A few sources specifically for conservation of archives also exist:
The National Conservation Manuscripts Trust is a charity which supports the care and conservation of manuscripts and has funded the decontamination of mould-affected collections of national importance or significance.
NCS Conservation Grants Fund is a small grant fund for conservators for small scale assessments and research projects by the commercial firm National Conservation Services (NCS).