Risk assessment: A comparative study of archive storage rooms

The goal of preventive conservation is to provide the correct maintenance of our cultural heritage in order to enrich our future. The Canadian Museum of Nature developed a risk model for preventive conservation that has proven useful in application to a Portuguese archive. This work applies this model to compare the magnitudes of specific risks estimated for this same archive collection when located in either of two pairs of storage rooms. These rooms are in two different parts of this building: two are in an older part and two are in a recent addition. It was, therefore, necessary to assess the building itself, both structurally and environmentally, as well as analyse its common human practices. In terms of the overall risk magnitude, the best room was found to be in the recent building and the worst in the older building. However, risks related to water problems were found to be higher in the new building. In this work cost-free measures and easy to implement recommendations are given in order to improve the quality of the storage rooms. A final comment on the method itself is also given.     

旅游活动对世界文化遗产地社区可持续发展影响——以我国9处世界遗产地为例

目前学界尚缺乏关于旅游活动对世界文化遗产地社区可持续发展影响的研究。在对我国9处世界遗产地社区调查的基础上,利用模糊综合评价法对旅游活动对我国世界文化遗产地社区可持续发展影响进行了评价。研究结果表明:旅游活动不仅没有给我国世界文化遗产地社区可持续发展带来显著的促进作用,反而产生了不利影响。亟需解决的问题有:(1)旅游活动给工艺品地域特色、本地文化认同感等带来的不利社会文化影响。(2)旅游活动给自然植被、空气质量、水体质量等造成的不利生态环境影响。(3)旅游活动未给五台山、平遥古城、武当山社区居民就业带来预期的有利经济影响。(4)旅游活动对我国世界文化遗产地社区经济、社会文化和生态环境的影响失衡。     

A web information system for the management and the dissemination of Cultural Heritage data

Safeguarding and exploiting Cultural Heritage induce the production of numerous and heterogeneous data. The management of these data is an essential task for the use and the diffusion of the information gathered on the field. Previously, the data handling was a hand-made task done thanks to efficient and experienced methods. Until the growth of computer science, other methods have been carried out for the digital preservation and treatment of Cultural Heritage information. The development of computerized data management systems to store and make use of archaeological datasets is then a significant task nowadays. Especially for sites that have been excavated and worked without computerized means, it is now necessary to put all the data produced onto computer. This allows preservation of the information digitally (in addition with the paper documents) and offers new exploitation possibilities, like the immediate connection of different kinds of data for analyses, or the digital documentation of the site for its improvement. Geographical Information Systems have proved their potentialities in this scope, but they are not always adapted to the management of features at the scale of a particular archaeological site. Therefore this paper aims to present the development of a Virtual Research Environment dedicated to the exploitation of intra-site Cultural Heritage data. The Information System produced is based on open-source software modules dedicated to the Internet, so users can avoid being software driven and can register and consult data from different computers. The system gives the opportunity to do exploratory analyses of the data, especially at spatial and temporal levels. The system is compliant to every kind of Cultural Heritage site and allows management of diverse types of data. Some experimentation has been done on sites managed by the Service of the National Sites and Monuments of Luxembourg.     

An analytical study of polypropylene as a support for paint layers. From concept to material in contemporary art

The artist Jordi Teixidor is one of the leading exponents of twentieth century Spanish abstract art. In recent years, he has used a synthetic polymer as a support for his art work, namely polypropylene. The behaviour of this material in combination with layers of oil paint has not been studied until now. One of the objectives of this study was to chemically characterise the material present in Jordi Teixidor's work, using FT-IR spectroscopy, in order to be able to examine the behaviour of this set of materials after undergoing cycles of accelerated aging. After subjecting the samples to temperature and relative humidity cycles and ultraviolet radiation, their physico-mechanical behaviour was determined via tensile and bend tests, with the results being processed further by means of spectroscopic techniques and colour measurements. It was found that the possible migration of the additives present in the PP support and the gradual degradation of the materials could affect the adherence between the paint layers in the future.