UCM/SHARE Postcards from the region

Collections Care Conference 2023: Preserving the Un-Preservable

The University of Cambridge Museums and SHARE Museums East 7th annual Collections Care conference is on the topic of Sustainability. We would like to invite all museum and heritage organisations and related parties in our region to participate by sharing your collections and activities over the months that follow the conference…

We are looking for contributions that fall into either of the following two categories:

1.The East of England as Witness

Is there an item or story in your collection or building that you use to research or explain any of the themes from the UN sustainable development goals? This could be a much reused and adapted object, the story of power provision, a school certificate for further education, a managed local landscape, a diagnostic type of oyster. The world is in fact, your oyster.

2.Taking a Step

Any step forwards is an achievement. Please share things you are doing to support any of the UN sustainable development goals. Perhaps you have moved from active to passive environmental control, do you have a programme supporting diverse recruitment into collections related work, are you recycling gloves or is one of your criterion for choosing suppliers based on their sustainability credentials? Please inspire your colleagues by sharing your achievements, large and small.

The goal is to showcase and inspire by demonstrating what a range of material and ideas is already out there, and then to share them more widely to inspire an motivate others.

Guidelines for contributing a ‘postcard’

We are looking for short, practical, written contributions, which we will then put together with others. Please try and relate entries to collections related activity – but be as imaginative as you like!

To submit content for a ‘postcard’ you will need to include the following:

Entries must include:

State which category your contribution falls into; Witness or Steps (see full description above)
Which UN sustainability goal/s this supports

Format of Submissions:

Include Organisational name and logo
Name, job title, and best content information (email/phone) if we need to contact you for further information.
Image/diagram of object or activity (please use an appropriate file size for slides), name the image file with your organisations name
Maximum of 450 words of text to include:
- - What it is
  - How are you using it/what does it mean/what affect does it have
You could link to a blog post or online catalogue for example

Please send all entries to sharemuseumseast@norfolk.gov.uk.

For an informal chat about contributing to this project, please contact Deborah Walton at dw259@cam.ac.uk

UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN goals, are wide ranging and there is plenty in our collections and activities which support them. For further information visit the UN website.