By now almost everyone has experienced the wonders of the World Wide Web. The initial excitement ("This is incredible!") and the hype ("This will transform society!") have died down and, love it or leave it, we may as well face the fact that the Internet is here to stay. Like the hole in the ozone layer, it won't go away—it's just going to keep growing. The time has come to conduct a rational assessment of this medium. And what better way to rate it than in terms of its usefulness to the field of conservation?
There are a number of ways to find conservation-related information, but they all require the use of a search engine. You don't have to be a computer programmer or a skilled typist to do this. All you have to do is type a word or two inside a little rectangular space, then click on the 'Search' button. If you can successfully operate a touch-tone phone, you have the manual and mental dexterity necessary to use a search engine.
The search engine 'Yahoo!' seems to be a favourite these days, if only by default. The simplest search method is to enter a broad term, like 'conservation', and then weed through the results. This yields (at the time of writing) 1092 site matches. But don't despair. It won't take you long to realize that only a very limited number of these sites are relevant to art and artifact conservation. The Horned Lizard Conservation Society (Texas Chapter) is not concerned with the preservation of natural history specimens. And the Organization for Bat Conservation is not related to the Baseball Hall of Fame. These sites are, obviously, the domain of environmentalists, and they outnumber ours by about 20 to 1. You can save time by being more specific with your search terms. For example, if you enter 'art conservation', you will get only 73 site matches, of which at least 10 will still be related to nature (as in, "The art of wise land use and conservation"). The trick now, as any bona fide surfer will testify, is to find the sites that give away something useful for free. Today's Internet was created largely by altruistic people with little thought for commerce, and a spirit of sharing still serves as its sacred and unshakeable foundation.
Among the most useful conservation-related sites, one stands out in terms of its depth, timeliness, and sheer generosity: CoOL, or Conservation OnLine (http://palimpsest.stanford.edu). This is everything we expect of the Internet: tons of free information and advice, all provided by selfless professionals who are interested only in helping others. And all under one roof, so to speak. In addition to news, bibliographies, and feature articles, CoOL operates several mailing lists devoted to conservation, like the ConsDist List (Conservation Distribution List). Anyone with e-mail can subscribe, free of charge, and tap into the ongoing discussions among conservators all over the world. If you're shy, you can sit back and read other people's dialogues, or you can sift through ten years' worth of archived inquiries and responses. If you're feeling bold, you might even consider posting your own inquiry by e-mail. But be warned. The experience is something akin to stepping up to the microphone at an international conference and addressing your peers. It can't be done anonymously. Another method of finding meaningful conservation advice is to surf through the doors of your favourite cybermuseum (they never close, and admission is free). The Canadian Heritage Information Network's Guide to Canadian Museums and Galleries is part of the CHIN Web site (http://chin.gc.ca). Every museum on the Internet can be found (http://www.icom.org/vlmp). Canada has 137 sites and the United States has 399.
With this kind of search, it pays to think big. Only fairly large museums have conservators on staff, let alone conservators with access to the Internet and time to spend contributing to a Web site.
One of the most useful museum sites is that of the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan (http://www.hfmgv.org). Check out their Preservation Fact Sheets; there are 11 in total, ranging from the care of furniture, glass, and textiles to historical silver and clocks. The complete text for each subject is free on your screen, or you can order hard copies through the mail for $5.00 each. That's a choice we can live with.
In another Newsletter, we'll delve further into the conservation resources of cyberspace, including the acronymous heavyweights like ICCROM, SCMRE, GCI, CHIN and—yours truly—CCI.
* Accurate, up-to-date, and—most important—free!
