from The Art Newspaper -
Civic Society Initiative launched in the UK, with added social networking tools
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The news is not so much in the use of Twitter ... (oh, please...). Rather, the survival of civic societies (liken to your neighbourhood-sized National Trust) in the UK points to an ingrain sense of heritage and urban preservation - done at the local level and from the ground-up - which avoids all the pretensions of corporate-speak that has become the norm for heritage agencies, here and abroad.

See also Civic Society Initiative web-site and briefing paper (PDF format).
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from The Guardian -
Scottish laser pioneers lead way in preserving world heritage treasures
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There is still the nagging suspicion that once a monument has been "preserved" as data points from a scan - then efforts to maintain the actual site might lapse. After all, would not a digital copy be a more accurate and truer representation - so why bother?
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from Technology Review -
Bone-setting Glue
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A glue that works underwater - and is activated by the rise in pH level of the surrounding water when released. There must be a use somewhere in the conservation of heritage materials. And there must also be plenty of other examples of useful materials to be had from the weird and wonderful world of nature.
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from The Art Newspaper -
America is changing—but are its art museums?
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If diversity is only skin-deep - literally - then the danger is that ideas (and ideologies) become polite, in order to be correct.
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from The Toronto Star -
Why settle for imitations of the past?
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Apart from the argument from a historical perspective, architectural preservation has a new-found and timely justification:

"The most sustainable thing you can do is keep an existing building. When you destroy an older building you are actually destroying the energy used to construct that building. And the amount of energy required to build is phenomenal."

from Wired Magazine -
Protect and Preserve: Mobile Art-Conservation Van Helps Save Treasures
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go to web-site

It is more of a mobile (EU-funded) conservation **science** lab, for technical analysis, rather than one which carries out actual conservation treatment. But still impressive, nonetheless.
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from Technology Review -
Terahertz Transistor Could Usher in Era of Cheap Surveillance Video Cameras
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An update on development in an imaging technique that had been found to be useful in the technical examination of historic cultural artefacts. Beside being able to reveal hidden features (much like x-rays), the detected signals could also potentially indicate the type of material being examined.

See earlier post on tetrahertz (or T-ray) imaging here.
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