NCS Full membership provides the support of an Accredited Conservator to work on site with custodians to assess, plan and help implement conservation improvements for their collections, such as building developments, environmental monitoring and management, collection needs assessments, conservation-related documentation for Archives and Museums Accreditation.
In addition to the advice provided by our network of Associates, all Accredited and Registered practices, we also operate as a referral service for studio projects and run four archival conservation studios, in Mayfair, Hackney, Oxfordshire and Pembrokeshire.
NCS provides a conservation-managed storage scheme with our partners Restore PLc and with Jamie Briggs Removal & Storage Ltd and a freezer storage service for acetate negatives and cine film, at Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, monitoring and overseeing the stored collections of c.120 institutions. The projects staff team is currently 10 conservators, four of whom are ACR Accredited. We provide a free environmental monitoring scheme for institutions and a new Product Testing service to offer an updated and analytically more sophisticated version of Oddy testing for display and storage materials. Details of all these services can be found on our website www.ncs.org.uk
NCS Associates currently work with nearly 200 Full member institutions throughout the UK and as far afield as the Falkland islands, and support a further 60 institutions under Supporting membership.
Accredited Members
Chris Woods ACR, FIIC
Chris has been a conservator and conservation manager for 40 years. Former public sector roles have included Head of Conservation & Collection Care at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, and Director of Collection Services for the Tate galleries. He has published and taught in a range of specialist fields, notably building and storage environments, parchment manuscripts, archival seals and plastic photographic negatives. Chris founded NCS in 2009/10 after a research project at University of the Arts, London. He is currently Chairman of the BSI committee responsible for BS4971:2017 Conservation & Care of Archive and Library Collections. Chris led the work to develop EN 16893:2018 Specifications for Buildings for Heritage Collections and for EN 17820:2023 Specifications for Managing Collections. Chris is adviser to Lincoln and Salisbury Cathedrals for the care of their 1215 Magna Cartas of King John and Hereford for its 1217 Magna Carta of Henry III.