Accepting uncertainty will be helpful when you are looking after heritage collections.

What is it about?

This is an article written for people who look after important collections in museums, galleries and archives. When we plan to care for collections, we do our best to avoid damage from happening and it is great that we use as much data and evidence as we can to do the best we can. The truth is though; we can never entirely remove uncertainty. So part of our responsible planning should be to consider how we manage uncertainty in ways that does not simply fall to eliminating it or expressing it mathematically. Once you engage with the idea of accepting uncertainty, you start to see new possibilities and approaches. You can see how many different ways the future can be uncertain and you can recognise that sometimes it is better to accept that there might be a situation that cannot be simply defined and agreed upon by everyone involved. In that situation, acknowledging different approaches and tolerating uncertainty may create more harmonious relationships. So sometimes uncertainty is more satisfactory than certainty. The medical profession help people live with uncertainty and advice offered to patients can be transferred to the heritage world.

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Why is it important?

This matters because a lot of risk management aims to get rid of uncertainty. Indeed uncertainty is often thought of as being a bad thing. If it is always there and cannot be completely got rid of then we are not doing all of our job if we pretend it can be eliminated or completely defined. Ignoring uncertainty makes us more vulnerable to bad outcomes, whereas accepting and managing it opens up more possibilities of happiness and effective communication.

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