Prevention and response plans for the protection of cultural heritage have been a focus of the Museum Council recently. As Iceland has now ratified the 1954 UNESCO Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, this includes a commitment that all recognized museums in Iceland work on prevention work and develop response plans for various types of threats, such as natural and climate hazards.
The Museum Council, in collaboration with curator Nathalie Jacqueminet, has launched a distance learning course for museums to assist and advise them in developing contingency plans. Now Nathalie has won guide which aims to help those responsible for recognized museums to be prepared to save cultural property when disaster strikes. An emergency can arise when
different circumstances and they have a great impact on the response measures that should be taken. The incident can occur in all kinds of circumstances, in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, in bad weather or during holidays.
It should be noted that the guide does not address the safety of people, which should always be a priority, and all museums should have a safety manual with an evacuation plan that describes how to respond to a dangerous situation or hazard and rescue people from the museum if necessary.
Guide-response-plan-museums-document1-01-10-2024