Across the historic counties and coastlines of South West England, a quiet but essential effort is underway to safeguard some of the UK’s most culturally and scientifically significant artefacts. From military banners to textile treasures and ancient fossils, these collections represent generations of human and natural history—and keeping them preserved in the face of time and climate is a challenge that’s largely invisible to the public eye.

At the heart of this work is Helena Jaeschke, a trained conservator and the regional Collections Care Officer for Museum Development South West (MDSW). With a remit that stretches from Gloucestershire to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Helena supports a network of over 300 accredited museums-and roughly the same number of unaccredited institutions-with practical, hands-on guidance in collections care and environmental monitoring.

Empowering Museums Through Expert Support

Many of the museums supported by MDSW operate on small budgets, with limited staff or run entirely by dedicated volunteers. "Very few museums across the South West have a conservator on their team," Helena explains. "Collections care is often undertaken by volunteers, and a lot of the environmental monitoring-when it happens-is still done manually."

In this context, Helena's role is both technical and transformative. Through site visits, training sessions, and projects, she provides museums with the tools and knowledge they need to care for their collections more effectively. One of the key areas of focus is environmental monitoring: ensuring that temperature, relative humidity, and light conditions are kept within safe parameters for sensitive items.

From Spot Checks to Data-Driven Decisions

Helena often begins site visits with a handheld environmental meter to take spot readings for temperature, relative humidity, and light levels. But these readings are just the start. "Spot checks don't tell the full story," she says. "Conditions can change dramatically throughout the day, and relying on a single daily reading can give a false sense of stability."

To help museums move beyond basic observation, Helena offers them the opportunity to borrow data loggers for up to six months. Many use Tinytag data loggers, which record continuous environmental data that can be downloaded and visualised using intuitive graphing software.

This provides museums with their first real look at how conditions fluctuate across different parts of their buildings. "Even within a single room, there can be significant differences in conditions," Helena notes. "By using at least two loggers, they begin to understand where their vulnerable zones are and how best to mitigate risks."

Making the Case for Change, and Funding

For many museums, having real environmental data is a turning point. It allows them to make evidence-based decisions, whether that's relocating sensitive collections to a more stable part of the building, justifying the purchase of dehumidifiers, or applying for conservation grants.

Funding bodies such as the Association of Independent Museums offer grants for preventive conservation, and applications that include six months of detailed monitoring data are far more likely to succeed. "Funders want to see a clearly defined problem and a practical plan for resolving it," says Helena. "The data helps museums build a compelling case."

In other cases, monitoring data is required for loan agreements, especially when artefacts are borrowed from national collections. The ability to place a logger in a display case or storage space ensures compliance with lending requirements and strengthens the museum's reputation as a responsible borrower.

Preserving a Diverse and Valuable Range of Collections

The types of collections across the South West are as varied as the region's geography. MDSW supports:

• Military museums, housing uniforms, weaponry, flags, and even military vehicles
• Rural and agricultural collections, featuring farm equipment, leather, wood, and metal artefacts
• Maritime museums, showcasing boats, navigation tools, and industrial heritage
• Costume and textile collections, including five significant collections from the National Trust, university archives, and regional institutions
• Natural history and local heritage collections, with everything from fossilised sea creatures to butterflies collected by Darwin himself

Each category presents unique environmental challenges. Leather, for example, is prone to cracking in dry air; textiles can degrade with light exposure; and archives and photographs need stable humidity levels to prevent mould and warping. Effective monitoring helps museums take proactive steps to manage these risks-before irreversible damage occurs.

Simple Tools with Big Impact

For many museums just beginning their journey into environmental monitoring, simple USB-connected loggers from Tinytag provide the perfect entry point. Helena emphasises the importance of accessibility: "Wireless systems and live dashboards are appealing, but many buildings make installation difficult due to their structure, and many teams simply aren't ready for that step yet."

Tinytag's reputation within the museum community also plays a role. "They're reliable, easy to use, and well-established in our sector," she says. "People feel comfortable using them, and the software allows them to compare data across multiple loggers very easily."

The ability to overlay readings, such as relative humidity across five different storage areas, enables museum teams to spot problem zones and patterns, even with limited technical knowledge.

Looking to the Future

As technology advances, Helena sees an opportunity for even greater support - particularly with light and UV monitoring, which is critical for museums managing loans and protecting light-sensitive objects. "Light and UV exposure is one of the most important factors after temperature and humidity," she notes. "A logger that can handle that will be a game changer for many of our museums."

Museum Development South West continues to act as a critical link between policy, funding, and on-the-ground conservation practice - ensuring that even the smallest museums in the most rural areas have access to the expertise and tools they need to care for their collections.

Helena's work is a testament to what's possible when technology, training, and passion align, and how data loggers, when placed in the hands of committed custodians, can quietly protect the heritage of a region for generations to come.