Interpreting Environmental Data in Heritage Science

A special issue of Heritage (ISSN 2571-9408).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 6289

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Collections Conservation, English Heritage Trust, Rangers House, Chesterfield Wlk, London SE108QX, UK
Interests: preventive conservation research; degradation studies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Preventive conservation is deeply grounded on the study of deterioration of material Cultural Heritage. Large amounts of environmental data are routinely collected on relative humidity, temperature, visible and UV radiation levels, pollutant gas concentrations, particulate deposition rates and compositions, and vibration. Effective management requires interpretation of these data into damage rates. This is increasingly important as controlling environments has large sustainability impacts. Determining risk at values outside of tight limits is critical, and major improvements can result from effective tools to aid users in this.

The aim of this Special Issue on ‘Interpreting Environmental Data in Heritage Science’ is to collect full papers, communications, and review articles highlighting recent achievements in the study of deterioration phenomena of material Cultural Heritage and enabling the interpretation of this research with end users’ measured data. Damage functions, algorithms, modelling, and multiscale modelling have all seen important advances in the previous decade and expanded the field beyond simple statistics and limits. Papers dealing predominantly with the translation of damage into values, whilst of great importance, are beyond the scope of this issue.

I am pleased to invite you to submit original research articles for this Special Issue to be published in the open access journal Heritage. High-quality papers from researchers in the scientific community are welcome.

Dr. David Thickett
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Heritage is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • degradation
  • climate
  • pollution
  • vibration
  • modelling
  • damage functions

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1517 KiB  
Article
Context, Development, and Intent: An Introduction to the IPI Preservation Metrics
by Emma J. Richardson, Marvin Cummings and Jean-Louis Bigourdan
Heritage 2023, 6(5), 4202-4213; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage6050221 - 9 May 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1542
Abstract
Supporting collections care professionals and facilities managers to understand their preservation environments is of increasing importance as the field of cultural heritage grapples with the competing demands of environmental and financial sustainability and the desire to broaden access to collections. As such, the [...] Read more.
Supporting collections care professionals and facilities managers to understand their preservation environments is of increasing importance as the field of cultural heritage grapples with the competing demands of environmental and financial sustainability and the desire to broaden access to collections. As such, the development of preservation indices that distill complex data into accessible tools can help collections care professionals understand the impact of access and preservation decisions and how they influence longevity. The IPI eClimateNotebook® Preservation Metrics were some of the earliest dose-response models developed for preservation, linking the rates of degradation and physical deformation to environmental variables and material properties. In this review article, we revisit the original aims and applications of the IPI Preservation Metrics with a view to aiding their interpretation and practical application for managing collection environments alongside a discussion of their limitations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interpreting Environmental Data in Heritage Science)
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12 pages, 4047 KiB  
Article
The Climate Toolbox—A Microsoft® Excel® Based Tool for Assessing and Comparing the Effects of Internal Climates on Museum Artefacts
by Boris Pretzel
Heritage 2023, 6(4), 3745-3756; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage6040198 - 15 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1713
Abstract
This paper describes the Climate Toolbox—a set of utilities for assessing and comparing real internal climates in terms of hazards they pose to museum collections. The Toolbox is a Microsoft® Excel® workbook with complex VBA codes optimised to process large datasets [...] Read more.
This paper describes the Climate Toolbox—a set of utilities for assessing and comparing real internal climates in terms of hazards they pose to museum collections. The Toolbox is a Microsoft® Excel® workbook with complex VBA codes optimised to process large datasets efficiently and quickly. The Toolbox takes user-provided climate data (up to 8000 sets of temperature, T, and relative humidity, rh, data) and characterises the climates in terms of critical parameters for stresses and mechanical damage, risk and magnitude of mould, relative permanence compared to (selectable) reference specifications, the proportion of data lying within and without selectable specification ranges, and the proportion of rh data swings exceeding a given magnitude. The interface is easily customisable, allowing users to input desired specification ranges, insert opening and closing times (to allow for different temperature specifications for periods when a space is open and occupied to when it is closed and empty), selectively change material critical strain parameters, and adjust the cycle periods for stress analysis. Results are summarised in a range of different graphical and tabular outputs and can be processed further to compare and rank spaces for their suitability to house different collections. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interpreting Environmental Data in Heritage Science)
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24 pages, 3084 KiB  
Article
Analysing Objects to Tailor Environmental Preventive Conservation
by David Thickett, Nicola Emmerson, Rene Larsen, Marianne Odlyha and David Watkinson
Heritage 2023, 6(1), 212-235; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage6010011 - 26 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2464
Abstract
This work explores the potential of analyzing individual objects to improve their preventive conservation. Previously, environmental recommendations have been based on an average or worst response of material groups. Cultural heritage objects are extremely variable and within a group such as archaeological iron [...] Read more.
This work explores the potential of analyzing individual objects to improve their preventive conservation. Previously, environmental recommendations have been based on an average or worst response of material groups. Cultural heritage objects are extremely variable and within a group such as archaeological iron a very wide range of responses are shown. Characterizing a single object’s response allows its environment to be tailored to its requirements and can enable significant resource and carbon footprint savings. Three main approaches are considered with a material explored in detail including preventive conservation ramifications. Composition analysis is investigated through the stability of limestones. The critical concentrations of soluble salts causing surface deterioration in one environment has been explored. A more rapid method of analyzing clays in acid insoluble fractions from drillings and undertaking that analysis non-invasively has been developed. Measuring deterioration rates is explored through oxygen consumption analyses of archaeological iron. The distributions of previously published data are explored and the changes in rates examined. A scheme for parchment based on shrinkage temperatures and observations is presented for the first time and its use illustrated with a newly acquired letter. The type of work required to produce these schemes is explored with leather. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interpreting Environmental Data in Heritage Science)
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