from The New York Times -
Linguist’s Preservation Kit Has New Digital Tools
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With the increasing ease and declining cost of using digital recoding technology, could we be overwhelmed by unanalysed and undifferentiated data, which are just as ineffective in advancing the efforts of intangible heritage preservation.
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from The Independent -
The collapse of Moscow: Architectural heritage being destroyed
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"But the rapid development of Moscow has not been unequivocally positive; it has come with haphazard building practices, low-quality constructions and the neglect or destruction of historical buildings. [...] The crisis is not limited to the capital. Historians and activists say that Moscow's poor example has been aped across Russia. Of most concern is St Petersburg, the Tsarist capital whose elegant centre was spared the usual Soviet replanning and is free of monolithic concrete structures. Now that is changing."

A clear case of how apathetic heritage preservation practices are not only "contagious" but can be disturbingly prevalent.
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from The New York Times -
Stripping Away the Darkness as Murals Are Reborn
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As inevitable aging of the varnish sets in, the building decor was adjusted to match the darkening shade:

"[O]ver the years the surfaces grew darker. And as the murals’ topcoat of varnish deepened, the maintenance staff painted the undecorated parts of the walls a darker color to match. After the north corridor lobby murals were cleaned, [...] the color scheme for the whole interior was out of whack."

Now, the cycle starts again - and conservation treatment somewhat plays a "renewal" role rather than one of mere preservation.
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from The Art Newspaper -

Crisis in conservation programmes as another UK course closes
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Closure of the Textile Conservation Centre will be a tragedy
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Perhaps the closures are not unique to training of conservators but part of a more pervasive phenomena which saw a significant shift in "academic" (or should that be vocational; or economic) priorities in institutions of higher learning.
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from Modern Art Notes -
Examining the latest threat to Spiral Jetty
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from Art21 Blog -
Extending the Conservation Framework: A Site-Specific Conservation Discussion with Francesca Esmay
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When an artwork is up against the natural elements and man-made chnages, will it stand a chance of being around in time to come?

See earlier posts here.
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from Slate -
Does Plastic Art Last Forever?
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Faced with a run-away effect of trying to preserve the "unpreservable", conservators working in this field could unwittingly be portrayed as eccentric or just plain out of touch. This is not helped by comments from well-meaning conservators, such as: "Everyone else in the world is trying to get rid of them and we're trying to preserve them."

Instead, conservators should face up to the reality of having to decide when something is not worth preserving anymore - as in when the costs outweigh the benefits (potential or otherwise). It is understandable that conservators would balked at having to make such decisions - which is why it is especially crucial and urgent to start the dialogue, starting in conservation training schools.
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from The Art Newspaper -
The Getty puts panel painting into perspective
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Something which conservation, as a profession, should spend more time thinking about and taking effective actions - before it is too late.
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from Guardian -
Legal row over National Portrait Gallery images placed on Wikipedia
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A most unfortunate approach where copyright is totally irrelevant in the age of ubiquitous information. The National Portrait Gallery is coming out of this looking like a big bad bully. Instead, the use of a suitable Creative Commons license - allowing for non-commercial use with acknowledgement of authorship - would have been more palpable.
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from Technology Review -
Pink Silicon Is the New Black
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A marked improvement (with significant cost reduction) in the development of sensors for imaging purpose:

"Black silicon can absorb light over a wider spectrum than can normal silicon--from low-frequency visible light through near- and short-wave-infrared wavelengths that would normally pass right through regular silicon. Another property, called photoconductive gain, gives black silicon much greater sensitivity to light. These properties have identified black silicon as a way to make smaller, cheaper, and lighter silicon-based light detectors and to replace more expensive materials used in infrared detectors found in fiber-optic links, security systems, and elsewhere."

The "elsewhere" allured to in the last sentence would include applications in the technical examination of paintings - akin to peeling back the layers of paint in an attempt to better understand the painting, as well as the working process of the artist.

See separate article for a sense of what infra-red imaging can do in terms of technical examination of paintings.
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from Guardian -

Museums' future lies on the internet, say Serota and MacGregor
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Museums on the internet? Get real
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Museums, up to mid 20th century, were the epitome of access, as artefacts were made available for scrutiny while on (open storage) display. However, with the ubiquitous reach of the internet culture, content became paramount and archives, rightly, took over the role of championing open access.

The singular issue of online access for museum collections would be the lost of reference and context to a human scale that accompanies viewing of artefacts in actual museum galleries. And that scale refers to qualities of size, depth, texture, transparency, colour, amongst others.

For stalwarts of the museum industry to declare - somewhat overconfidently - that the future of the museum lies (solely?) on the internet is akin to forecasting the death of the book - definitely rational but probably pre-mature. The internet is surely a means rather than an end.
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from Arts in Houston -
MFAH does conservation work on Anselm Kiefer painting in public
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Link via Modern Art Notes.
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from The New York Times -
Incandescent Bulbs Return to the Cutting Edge
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A much needed improvement in energy consumption for museums when that spot of lighting of artefacts that can only be achieved using good old incandescent light bulbs.
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from The Telegraph -
World's oldest Bible published in full online
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from IIC News -
Earliest Christian Bible virtually restored
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Codex Sinaiticus
go to web-site

In this project, the minimal conservation treatment rendered - repairs made to the pages so that they could be photographed, and nothing more - was crucial in enabling a wider dissemination of the context via electronic means. Would the understanding of "minimal interventuion" in another era (say, without computers) be different? Or has to be different...
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from The Telegraph -
Westminster Abbey to be given a corona in first change for 250 years
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Adding onto an iconic architecture need not be tantamount to "destruction" of heritage if one can recognise and practice with a heightened sensitivity towards - and deep understanding - of history, context and materials
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from Wired Magazine -
Packing It In: Why the Foam Noodle Couldn't Cut It in the Protection Racket
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What a waste when something goes under - not because of its an inferior product but because of the failure of gaining a foothold in the market. Perhaps it also points to the innate (and irrational, at times?) cautiousness within the museum and art logistic sector.
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from Emerging Tech -
Robo-furniture eats household pests
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Every museum should have one ... or more, if budget allows.
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from The Guardian -

Street clutter threat to conservation areas
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The English Heritage patient
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Decay of conservation areas in England
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Highlighting an aspect in the preservation of urban environment that is usually overlooked - streets.
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