Bas van Velzen (University of Amsterdam), Documentation or Reporting?
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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.
Bas van Velzen (University of Amsterdam), Documentation or Reporting?
- 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