A soft system framework for the conservation management of material cultural heritage

Experience gained from cultural heritage management in Norway and the UK has led to the development of a framework describing the key conservation activities required to sustain a diverse range between material cultural heritage assets. A soft system approach allows the complex interaction between various activities and external factors impacting on cultural heritage management to be examined as a single entity, for example, the contributions made by human interaction, environmental impact and the properties of the material heritage itself, on the preservation or loss of a cultural object. By constructing such a framework it is possible to identify potential indicators that can be used to measure the quality of conservation activities. Arguments are presented for grouping these indicators of impact into social, economic and environmental categories and examples are given of how this approach can be universally applied to real situations.