The document discusses various challenges and considerations around documenting conservation treatments of objects. It notes that the amount of time spent documenting per object can vary significantly depending on the specialization of the conservator and complexity of the object. Effective documentation is important but current practices using analog, digital text documents, spreadsheets or databases all have limitations. There is a need for standards around what to document, best practices for documentation, and centralized repositories to make documentation more accessible and useful to conservators.

2. documenting or reporting
structure or jumble?

3. the documentation burden
• obligation set by our organisations
• responsibility of the conservator towards
the object
introduction
inleiding

4. specialisation diversity
• specialisations differ in object
complexity
• specialisations differ in time spent per
object
• specialisations differ in documentation
culture
introduction
inleiding

5. inleiding
introduction
complexity

6. time spent on object
minutes 20
introduction
hours 150
inleiding

7. culture
• education
- formal training
- on the job training
• tradesmanism vs academia
• institutional vs self employed
introduction
inleiding

8. you are also documented
• S = subjective: anamnesis, problem
based
• O = objective: result of examination
• E = evaluation: diagnose
• P = plan: treatment
elements
inleiding

9. the object being documented
• S = treatment necessity
- exhibition, damage, maintenance, bad repair
• O = condition report
- expertise conservator, examination/research
• E = treatment proposal
• P = treatment (to be documented)
elements
inleiding

10. what to document
• who
• what
• where
• when
• how
• why ???
elements
inleiding

11. elements of documentation
• metadata > supplied by client/museum
- object description, number etc.
• object description
- size, technique, material, etc.
- condition/damage > treatment proposal
• treatment
- operations: what, how, where, with what (tools)
- materials used: what, composition, origin
- illustrations, before, during, after
elements
inleiding

12. what is not part of documentation
• (art)historical essays
inleiding problems problems
• implicit pseudo documentation
- not “B72” but:
ethyl-methacrylate copolymer: Paraloid B72
- “surface cleaned” without method, means, location
• unreadable illustrations
- “look how many clamps I have”
- position/orientation of object different in every picture
• report
problems

13. documentation vs report
• documentation is for you/colleague
• documentation should go with object
lingua franca - jargon of the conservator
• report is a narrative
• report explains the why
• report is for client/non-colleague
solution?
inleiding
the “non” jargon speaker

14. documentation vs report
• report can be constructed from the
information in the documentation
• documentation derives the why from
protocol/shopbook, work journal
• only treatment variations have to be
documented: written down
solution?
inleiding

15. time spent on object
inleiding problems problems
minutes 20 150 1 : 7,5
problems
hours 150 20 7,5 : 1

16. current practice
• analog: physical
- forms, reports
- illustrations
• digital: virtual
- text document (.doc)
- spreadsheet (.xls)
- database (.dbs .fm)
inleiding look for?
what to

17. analog
• is infrastructure still in place?
- accessability to documentation/reports
- suspension files etc.
- bulky, single location
• documentation material decays
- quality of paper and ink
- photos, negatives
inleiding look for?
• transition to digital
- large files
- mostly not machine readable (OCR)
what to

18. digital in general
• compatibility
- platform (PC, UNIX, MAC)
• quality IT-structure: back-up!
- by conservator
- by institution
• accesibility is not an issue
inleiding look for?
- access can be regulated
• obsolescense
- backward compatible
- hardware not available/breaks down
what to
- software does not run on modern machines

19. digital traps
• text documents (.doc)
- only non discriminative search possible (flat)
- invites narrative instead of documentation
- easy link illustration-text
- infinite freedom
- relation to other file needs extra keywords
- other program needed to establish links
inleiding look for?
what to

20. digital traps
• spreadsheet (.xls)
- in office-suite: “no need” to purchase database
- hybrid use: actual function is for complex calculations
- has to be designed and built
- only flat searches possible (one level)
- relations between data cumbersome
- integrating information in database systems can be
inleiding look for?
tricky
what to

21. digital traps
• database (.dbs .fm)
- to be purchased separately
- learning curve
- has to be designed and built
inleiding look for?
what to

22. digital solution
• database (.dbs .fm)
- to be purchased seperately
- learning curve
- has to be designed and built
- multiple, discriminative search possible
- easily made relations between records and data
inleiding look for?
- easily publishable on the web
- excellent integration in existing systems
what to

23. status quo
• no standard
- what to document
- how to make photos/illustrations
• no common thesaurus
- names of techniques
- names of deterioration/damage patterns
- names of materials
inleiding look for?
• no repository
- who can access data?
- who pays?
what to

24. inleiding look for?
what to
E-mail
•elandbas@mac.com