詹姆士.克爾(James Kerr)博士所撰寫的第一版 《維護計畫》在1982年出版,也就是在克爾(Kerr)博士協助撰寫的初版澳洲《ICOMOS布拉憲章》(Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter)的三年之後。雖然這兩份文件都改變了澳洲遺產維護的實踐工作,但兩者相較,因為克爾(Kerr)博士以有趣及精確的語言來書寫《維護計畫》,所以更顯親切,可說是更具影響力的。《維護計畫》最大的價值,就像克爾(Kerr)博士自己為澳洲一些最重要的場所所擬的特定場域維護計畫一樣,在於使實務者與一般大眾,包含發展的社區,都能輕易理解。這一直是他自己評量任何文件能否成功的標準。
Dr James Kerr’s first edition of The Conservation Plan was published in 1982, three years after the original version of the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter which he had also helped to write. Both of these publications transformed the way in which heritage conservation was practised in Australia; but it was The Conservation Plan, written in Dr Kerr’s colourful and precise language, that was the more approachable of the two, and arguably the more influential. The great merit of The Conservation Plan, like Jim Kerr’s own site-specific conservation plans for some of Australia’s most important places, was that it was able to be understood easily by both practitioners and the general public – including the development community. This was always his own measure of the success of any document.