ABSTRACT
Collections condition surveys are surveys undertaken in order to assess, or audit, the condition of collections as a whole, rather than to identify individual objects requiring action.
This paper introduces a general methodology for assessing the condition of museum collections. It includes definitions of the data which need to be collected, and a method of surveying, based on examining a statistically designed random sample of objects in the collection or collections, thus making the most effective use of scarce conservation expertise. Then, the analysis of the data is described, and a checklist for the resulting report is presented.
