Reusing maintenance monitoring data on preventive conservation

Abstract

The indoor climate of libraries and archives is determinant for the preservation of their collections, as temperature and relative humidity can trigger other damage factors. Standards and literature recommend to perform long term monitoring to understand the climatic history where the goods were kept, instead of follow rigid and arbitrary conditions. This trend is sustainable and environmentally friendly, but adds a new duty to the overloaded staff. We present two technical advices sustained in monitoring records produced to assess the HVAC equipment and reused to preservation purposes. The first is a library collection transferred from a historic building to a new building, and the second is a deposit room supplied with de-humidificators, where the analysis evidenced a very low humidity ratio. The main conclusion is that a synergetic use of monitoring data can improve the indoor climate of the collections and reduce the energy demand for preservation.

The use of restored monuments for the exhibition of contemporary artworks: where is (preventive) conservation?

“…So, one would wonder, if it is of extreme importance to institutionalize the recordings of micro-climate conditions in a monument that will host collections before they are even incorporated. As Duilio, Moyano and Gomez suggest "conservation literature and standards recommend to perform long term monitoring on a building instead of following rigid and arbitrary conditions" [20]. My opinion is that we have to redefine the interior space, the monument itself on both formal, practical and conceptual levels, besides the set-pointing of the ideal environmental conditions.…”