IIC and ICOM-CC 2014 Declaration on environmental guidelines

The 2014 ICOM-CC and IIC Conferences both included plenary sessions on environmental conditions, resulting in the IIC/ICOM-CC 2014 Declaration on Environmental Guidelines. This paper reflects on the achievements of the Declaration, issues that arose during its writing, and what it does and does not seek to address.     

Environmental conditions for the safeguarding of collections: Future trends

This paper sets out the role of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) in facilitating the current international debate on the selection of appropriate environmental conditions for collections to optimise their future condition while minimising energy consumption. It looks back 35 years to when Garry Thomson first published The Museum Environment and forward 35 years to demonstrate how IIC can care for the future as well as care for the past. It asks whether we are posing the right questions in this debate, draws attention to leadership in the cultural sector, and suggests that more conservation professionals should aspire to leadership positions directing museums and heritage organisations.     

Environmental conditions for safeguarding collections: What should our set points be?

This paper explores the complex question of environmental conditions in museums and the current status of the IIC and ICOM-CC working group on environmental conditions in museums. Reviewing environmental conditions in museums in the light of sustainability and cost of energy pressures has resulted in members of the conservation profession holding differing views on what can safely be implemented. These views vary from leaving conditions at the current recommend levels, to promoting a substantial broadening of parameters. To understand how these positions have been reached, the history of environmental guidelines is surveyed. Moving forward, IIC in conjunction with ICOM-CC has established a working group to investigate the current global perspective on environmental conditions on a country-by-country basis, to identify a methodology by which a fresh and relevant review of these current positions can lead to practical outcomes, and to encourage dialogue with the broader museum profession. This paper reports on the interim findings of the working group and discusses the issues that arise from them. These include the lack of transparency between institutions in regards to actual conditions, the need for wider debate with museum colleagues, and the necessity of further experiential knowledge sharing rather than experimental research.     

Environmental conditions for the safeguarding of collections: A background to the current debate on the control of relative humidity and temperature

Conditions of relative humidity (RH) and temperature within museums and buildings holding collections of cultural heritage objects are often maintained around a strictly controlled set point of about 50 ± 5% RH and 20 or 21 ± 2°C to provide safe, stable conditions for hygroscopic artifacts. It has recently been proposed that these ranges should be relaxed to values that are less energy-intensive to maintain while still being safe for the objects in the collection, with the aim of reducing both carbon footprint and energy use. It is also suggested that conditions should be determined by the needs of individual objects and by the local climate of the region, rather than applying overall values across the museum as a whole. This proposal has led to much discussion within the conservation community. The suggested values, a stable humidity within the range 40–60% RH and a stable temperature within the range 16–25°C for most objects, apart from the most vulnerable, are derived from the results of experimental research on the responses of individual materials to particular conditions of RH and temperature, as well as observations of the behaviour of cultural heritage objects in their own environments and on loan. This paper describes briefly the historical and scientific background to the present discussion.     

古籍历史修复遗存的形式、处理措施及启示

[目的 /意义]历史修复遗存是古籍的组成部分,是新的古籍修复周期处理的对象,研究古籍历史修复遗存不仅能丰富古籍修复技术,更能提高古籍修复质量.[方法/过程]分别运用归纳法和案例法研究古籍历史修复遗存的形式及处理措施.[结果/结论]古籍历史修复遗存形式包括修复材料、修复方法及其印记等.古籍历史修复遗存处理应依据具体情况分...     

The Imperative of Soft Skill Development in Preventive Conservation Practice and Training

ABSTRACT

Cultural heritage is wonderfully diverse and as heritage preservation professionals, it is our duty to address the preventive conservation of all cultural heritages. However, there is no one set of guidelines, practices or rules that can be applied in all situations. A preventive conservator with strong technical and soft skills is essential in this situation. At the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC), preventive conservation has been an identifiable part of the curriculum since the early 1980s. From its establishment, the curriculum has evolved to include the teaching of both current day technical skills for the practice of preventive conservation and soft skills in teamwork, leadership, institutional priorities and goals identification, and written and oral communication. These are taught to all students in their first year and those that select the option of a preventive conservation minor in their second year. Recently, it has become clear that it is not possible to teach adequately both the technical and soft skills needed for the practice of preventive conservation within WUDPAC's existing minor area of study. Additional time is needed to study and develop the complex theories, abilities and requisite skills that characterize the preventive conservation specialty. This paper discusses the work to develop a curriculum for a WUDPAC preventive conservation major, the strong mandate to continue to teach both technical and soft skills, and the surprising resistance to the establishment of a preventive conservation major.     

Frontiers of Preventive Conservation

ABSTRACT

This work considers areas where our present lack of knowledge curtails the effectiveness or efficiency of preventive conservation practice. Mixed media, especially archaeological metals and organics have incompatible requirements for relative humidity (RH). An approach based on understanding the risk versus RH for both materials and considering the showcase performance is elucidated as a solution. Pollution, both the mixed atmospheres around most cultural heritage and the complex, variable nature of deposited particles, are further areas in need of more research. Damage functions and measurement of object deterioration rates are investigated as a path forward, and examples are given.     

The Cost-effectiveness of Preventive Conservation Actions

ABSTRACT

Two historic house museums, a municipal art gallery, and a provincial archive have had comprehensive risk and option assessments done by the Canadian Conservation Institute. For each institution, an average of 60 options addressing 40 risks was analyzed in terms of risk reduction, cost, and cost-effectiveness. A meta-analysis found that cost-effectiveness follows a strong economy of scale within each institution. By estimating valuation of each collection, cost-effectiveness was converted into benefit–cost ratio of dollar spent per dollar value saved and was found not to follow an economy of scale between small and large institutions. Optimization software was applied to see if precise maximization of risk reduction gave significantly different recommendations than those in the original reports which relied on the Pareto rule of addressing the largest risks first.     

Preventive Conservation: People,Objects, Place and Time in the Philippines

ABSTRACT

Preventive conservation, with its origins grounded in the material fabric of cultural material, is in a period of transformation, with numerous practitioners, in and outside of the field of conservation, considering its broader and holistic objectives. The conventional tools for the assertion of preventive conservation principles, namely the assessment and management of risks to cultural material from the ‘ten agents of deterioration’, have a central focus on the primacy of physical materials and degradation, with less clear relationships with people, place, and time in their modelling. With a case study focus on collections in the Philippines, this paper argues for a practice of preventive conservation that incorporates a balanced assessment and broader thinking around the contexts of objects, people, place, and time. The case studies of ecclesiastical Church collections, and museum environments in the Philippines, demonstrate how the interdependency of objects, people, place and time forms a holistic and conceptual preventive conservation framework. Through a cyclic renegotiation of these four parameters, this paper speculates on the gaps and opportunities for an inclusive view of preventive conservation that is current and more sustainable.     

Biotechnology for Preventive Conservation: Development of Bionanomaterials for Antimicrobial Coating of Outdoor Sculptures

ABSTRACT

Outdoor sculptures are part of the sociocultural identity of cities, but are extremely vulnerable to deterioration due to exposure to harsh environmental conditions and climate change. Furthermore, deterioration by micro-organisms renders urgent the need to design protective coatings. This research proposes an integrated methodology for the development of innovative and sustainable nanofilms for applications in the area of art conservation, very specifically in the preventive conservation of outdoor sculptures. Gathering objective data for the characterization of the surface microbiota is important in order to design strategies that make use of bio or nanotechnology innovative coatings. Methodologies for the characterization of the microbiota present in a granite outdoor sculpture, followed by preliminary results on the application of protective antimicrobial coatings for surfaces of cultural objects are described.     

Integrated and Predictive Systems for Preventive Conservation

ABSTRACT

Forecasting the dynamics of alteration in materials, in particular the timescale of degradation, is relevant to preventive conservation, and great deal of effort has gone into developing new models for the kinetics of physical and chemical phenomena affecting materials. Creating monitoring systems able to assess the evolution of degradation processes that inform intervention programs is necessary to ensure the protection of historical and artistic heritage. The Research Unit for Integrated and Predictive Systems (SIP) is presented: it develops new tools and algorithms to study the alteration of materials using non-invasive techniques and passive monitoring, as well as new mathematical models to predict how the surfaces of materials degrade with time. The paper focuses on the Arch of Augustus and presents initial results from two virtual sensors used to ‘monitor’ environmental conditions outdoors. These systems do not need a permanent, invasive network of sensors in situ. They rely instead on local infrastructure for measuring air quality, and adopt smart information fusion algorithms to predict the environment around the cultural heritage site. Virtual sensors can provide an effective control system that highlights specific conditions linked to specific forms of alteration.     

中美文献保护与修复职业认证制度比较研究

图书馆的人员建设朝着标准化、专业化、规范化的方向发展,文章介绍中美两国文献保护与修复的职业认证制度,在此基础上进行多角度分析比较,并就中国的文献保护与修复职业认证制度提出若干建议。     

对社会化媒体资源长期保存的思考

社会化媒体是给予用户极大参与的网络媒体,社会化媒体资源指的是所有形式的社会化媒体工具、网站,以及其中多数由用户生成的信息内容。文章在借鉴现有国内外理论研究与实践探索的基础上,结合社会化媒体资源不同于一般网络资源的特性,从社会化媒体资源保存的必要性、资源的选择、保存主体、保存方法及保存过程中要注意的问题等方面进行探讨,提出对用户产生内容进行加工后保存、让平台运营商参与保存、利用云存储等技术、广泛开展合作联盟、妥善解决法律及成本等问题的观点,为社会化媒体这一特殊网络资源的长期保存与有效利用提供参考。     

任重道远 砥砺奋进——我国古籍保护学科建设之探索与愿景

自2007年“中华古籍保护计划”正式实施以来,我国古籍保护事业取得了巨大的成就,同时专业人才缺乏的问题日益突显,古籍保护的学科建设成为学界关注的焦点。本文在梳理国内外古籍保护学科建设和人才培养实践和经验的基础上,就学界关注的“古籍保护应独立成学”“古籍保护的学科归属”等问题,提出我国古籍保护学科建设的理论基础,进而阐释古籍保护的研究对象、研究类型和范围、研究内容、研究方法、研究目的、学科性质和定义等基础理论问题。在借鉴欧美古籍保护人才培养模式的基础上,提出我国古籍保护教育的培养目标、方式、研究方向划分、课程设置、教材建设、实验室和实训基地建设等。关于古籍保护学的学科地位问题,认为近期需要大力建设古籍保护的二级学科,远期规划应于新增学科门类“文化遗产保护”之下,将“古籍保护”设为一级学科,其下再设“古籍保护学”“古籍鉴定编目”“古籍保藏修复”“古籍再生传播”四个二级学科。此远期愿景较目前而言跨度较大,实现难度也很高,若能付诸实际,将带来古籍保护学科建设、人才培养和事业发展的深刻变革。图1。表1。参考文献41。     

Overcoming Obstacles to Preventive Conservation Projects in Italy: With a Case Study of the Savoy Carriage Collection of the Presidency of the Republic

ABSTRACT

Working on preventive conservation in Italy is difficult but not impossible. After small successes and setbacks convincing museums to adopt elements of preventive conservation in the 1990s, the first author (Rossi Doria) was contracted for 15 years to preserve the historic carriages and associated objects of the Presidency of the Republic of Italy. This required patience to overcome or circumvent obstacles such as an inflexible bureaucracy and the absence of any formal recognition of preventive conservation within the educational and contractual systems for heritage conservation. The key factors in his success were the support of the curators, the financial and planning autonomy of the Presidency, and the obvious need for conservation and preservation of these elegant and complex objects. The program began in 2001 with the recovery of the forgotten collection from inappropriate storage in several locations. The entire collection was surveyed and recorded, not only the carriages but also thousands of harnesses, saddles, clothing, fabrics, weapons and memorabilia. Multiple preventive and interventive actions were undertaken, such as pest eradication for all sensitive materials, environmental surveys, and everyday maintenance, as well as complex treatments for the ornate carriages. Analysis by country of published articles on preventive conservation and of IIC membership both confirm that the topic is not as well established in Italy as in many other countries. Some reasons and solutions are proposed.     

职业精神与馆员职业倦怠的抑制

本文简要阐述了图书馆员的职业精神,指出现实中馆员存在的职业倦怠,提出了馆员职业倦怠的若干预防举措.     

Acoustic emission monitoring of an eighteenth-century wardrobe to support a strategy for indoor climate management

The on-site monitoring of acoustic emission (AE) has allowed the direct tracing of climate-induced crack propagation in an eighteenth-century wardrobe displayed in the Gallery of Decorative Art in the National Museum in Krakow, Poland. The anti-correlation measuring scheme and frequency filtering allowed very low levels of physical damage to the wardrobe to be detected in spite of the high background noise typical of the museum environment. The total AE energy recorded during two years of monitoring corresponded to a fractured area of 12 mm² or a total crack propagation of 1.2 mm for two10-mm-thick panels. Although the total damage recorded was minute, correlation between the events of fracturing and falls in indoor relative humidity (RH) in winter due to insufficient humidification was evident. The risk of damage, expressed in terms of crack propagation, was quantified as a function of the magnitude of the RH falls of the duration compatible with the response time of the object. The data allow acceptable RH falls to be identified if a conservation professional or a curator selects a ‘tolerable’ yearly propagation of the fracture, in other words the progress of damage considered insignificant.