Documentation
The Working Group Documentation publishes an annual Newsletter which includes contributions from all the research areas.
Programme 2005-2008
Past Programmes
The Coordinator of the Working Group
Kriste Sibul
Conservation Centre "Kanut"
Pikk 2
10123 Tallinn
ESTONIA
Tel: +372 644 69 15
Fax: +372 631 39 35
E-mail: kriste.sibul@kanut.ee
The Assistant coordinators
Dahlia Mees
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (IRPA/KIK)
Jubelpark 1
1000 Brussels
BELGIUM
E-mail: dahlia.mees@kikirpa.be
Note: all documents can be
viewed in PDF with Adobe Acrobat.
Interim Meeting
7-10 May, 2008, Tallinn, Estonia
The Conference Centre of Kumu Art Museum.
More information in the First Announcement (PDF).
Projects
Assessment of the content of the conservation documentation used in memory institutions
In modern world, using the new media for description of our cultural heritage provides amongst the recognized ones and an opportunity to create different levels of access. Objects, which traditionally have been part of static museum collections and could still be visited locally, have started to move in to the internet and in this way, help us to share our cultural heritage.
This means, that conservation documentation, also on handwritten or print form, has to turn on to electronic one. Descriptions on cards were yesterday, almost, but can’t be ignored. Linking the "old" and "new" documentations might be more crucial than it seems at first place, especially in the sense of preservation. More than ever common understanding about terminology, conservation and preservation is needed.
The intent of following checklist is to make an inventory of documentary tools (databases) used by institutions in the field of heritage conservation and restoration.
The short-term objective of this work is to promote the development of databases with similar content, both on print and digital forms.
The long-term objective is to create a website with limited access, which consists of examples (demo-versions) and advice-links about conservation documentation.
When filling the questionnaire, please note, that YES or NO answers were expected, only, of course, more precise information is very welcomed, too. But, when choosing the simplest way, the filling of this checklist should not take more than 10 minutes.
Checklist
Please return the filled checklist to Kriste Sibul, kriste.sibul@kanut.ee at the end of the year 2007.
Download the checklist.
ICOM-CC Triennial preprints
Articles published at the ICOM-CC Preprints of the 14th Triennial Meeting, The Hague, 12-16 September 2005, Vol. I, James & James, 2005.
- Geneviève Aitken*, Christian Lahanier, Ruven Pillay and Denis Pitzalis; Ilenia Cassan; Elena Kuzmina, Junko Koga; Rui Ferreira da Silva, Curvelo Alexandra, Escobar Nazaré and Matos Emília; Hsien-Min Hsiao, EROS: an open source database for museum conservation - restoration, pp. 15-23. Abstract: The EROS database was developed internally to manage all manner of digital documentation. It was designed to handle museum collection analytical data from the laboratory as well as from museum conservation/restoration workshops. The information is focused on scientific and technical data. This includes indexing vocabularies, study reports, restoration reports, digital data from quantitative analysis, spectra, graphs, chemical formulae, ultraviolet, infrared, raking light photography and scanning electron microscopy images. The database also includes administrative information such as inventory tracking and the restoration history of the works of art as well as periodic surveys of the collection. New features include automatic content recognition of objects, geographical location display, panoramic viewing, multi-spectral image and three-dimensional model display.
- Mark Clarke and Leslie Carlyle, Page-image recipe databases, a new approach for accessing art technological manuscripts and rare printed sources: the Winsor & Newton archive prototype, pp. 24-29. Abstract: This paper describes a new database approach for making the contents of a documentary source widely accessible without the need for exhaustive transcription or complex editing. The electronic availability of historic recipes greatly facilitates correlation between the recipes and analytical results from historic art works, thus serving conservators and conservation scientists, as well as art historians and curators. The database incorporates full page images from the primary source, alongside an index and summary of individual page contents. This removes the problems of full-text entry, and allows the rapid generation of indices. As the original page is always visible to the user, subsequent researchers are not restricted to interpretations within the database entries. A fully functional pilot database is being built for the 19th century archive of Winsor & Newton, which contains recipes and processes for making oil painter's materials.
- Christian Lahanier*, Geneviève Aitken and Ruven Pillay; Angelo Beraldin, François Blais, Louis Borgeat, Luc Cournyer, Michel Picard, Marc Rioux and John Taylor; Bernd Breuckmann; Philippe Colantoni; Christophe de Deyne, Two-dimensional multi-spectral digitization and three-dimensional modelling of easel paintings, pp. 30-42. Abstract: This paper presents the usefulness and utility of three complementary digitization techniques for the dynamic rendering of colour, roughness and shape of easel paintings. Two-dimensional multi-spectral digitization and three-dimensional (3D) modeling of paintings are used for colour accuracy rendering and measurement, colour characterization, pigment identification, for high-definition visualization of the painting, and for the measurement of the shape of the support and the paint-layer roughness. The experimentation was performed on several paintings. The results show the advantages of each technique. Several viewers were developed to handle multi-spectral images and 3D models.
- Christian Lahanier* and Denis Pitzalis, Olivier Feihl, Micheline Jeanlin, Francis Schmitt, Three-dimensional modelling of archaeological objects for conservation, visualization, colour and shape characterization: comparison of details, pp 43-51 Abstract: Three-dimensional (3D) modelling of museological objects requires new digital technologies. Several systems have been tested for different kinds of application depending on the type of museum collection. Based on different optical techniques, they are used here for specific applications such as the visualization and the measurement of the decoration made on ancient gold objects, the classification by image content recognition based on colour and shape, and the measurement of the roughness of the surface of objects by profiling techniques to evaluate and register their state of conservation. These experiments were applied to three categories of object: Greek vases, white clay Gallo-Roman figurines produced mostly in the centre of France, and two Gorythes made of gold which were discovered at different places and which had to be to be compared.
- Patrick Le Boeuf *, Patrick Sinclair, Kirk Martinez and Paul Lewis, Geneviève Aitken and Christian Lahanier, Using an ontology for interoperability and browsing of museum, library and archive information, pp. 52-57. Abstract: Ontologies play an important part in the development of the future 'semantic web'; the CIDOC conceptual reference model (CRM) is an ontology aimed at the cultural heritage domain. This paper describes a Concept Browser, developed for the EU/IST-funded SCULPTEUR project (semantic and content-based multimedia exploitation for European benefit environment (programme IST-2001-no. 35372); May 2002 to May 2005), which is able to access different museum information systems through a common ontology, the CRM. The development of this Concept Browser has required mappings from the legacy museum database systems to the CRM. The crucial process of creating the mappings is described, using the C2RMF catalogue (EROS) and library databases as a case study.