{"id":4272,"date":"2009-09-21T18:49:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T23:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/2009\/09\/conservation-glossaries\/"},"modified":"2009-09-21T18:49:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T23:49:00","slug":"conservation-glossaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2009\/09\/21\/conservation-glossaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservation Glossaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, Katie and Rose \u2013 you\u2019ve convinced me to answer the call! <\/span><\/p>\n

Hello fellow ECPNers! Allow myself to introduce\u2026myself. My name is Crista Pack and I am currently employed by the <\/span>Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art<\/span><\/a> in Indianapolis as their Conservation Technician. Some might find this odd considering that there are no conservators at the Eiteljorg\u2026in fact there isn\u2019t a conservation department or lab either. I\u2019m it. I like to joke that I\u2019m the head of the department and the lackey all rolled into one. <\/span>
<\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019m at the Eiteljorg because two years ago they were awarded an <\/span><\/div>\n

IMLS<\/span><\/a> grant to conduct a condition survey of nearly 5,000 objects in their collection. The money is being used to bring in Conservators specializing in objects, textiles, paper, paintings, and sculpture. I get to work with these conservators to survey and photograph the objects and then enter this information into our database. It\u2019s a great gig and I\u2019m happy to have it.<\/p>\n

However, today as I was entering my <\/span>2,437th<\/span><\/a> survey into the database it occurred to me how nice it would be to have a conservator type sitting across the room who I could just shout out questions to spontaneously and then get an immediate response. Sure, I\u2019m lucky to have <\/span>Richard McCoy<\/span><\/a> as my mentor extraordinaire\u2026but he\u2019s all the way across town at the <\/span>IMA<\/span><\/a>. And even though I imagine that he is usually just sitting by his phone, anxiously awaiting my phone calls – sometimes he\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

But, I digress. The point is, as a person still learning the field; I often have random questions about simple things. Like, what the heck does \u201cskinning\u201d mean when referring to a piece of paper? Or, what is the difference between cockling and buckling? What exactly is Silly Putty made of?<\/p>\n

So, I turned to my trusty Google toolbar. I figured I would at least get hits on a half dozen dictionaries, and from those I should be able to decipher a conservation-related meaning for \u201cskinning.\u201d But I got something much better. I\u2019m sometimes the last person to figure out tech\/web-y things, so bear with me if you\u2019ve known about these websites for years, but holy friggin\u2019 cow\u2026I feel like I hit the motherload today!<\/p>\n

The first one is the Fine Arts Conservancy website:
<\/span>http:\/\/www.art-conservation.org\/glossary.htm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

There you will find glossaries for paintings, works on paper, furniture, and decorative furniture elements. This is also where, by the way, I found my answer:<\/p>\n

Skinning:<\/strong>
Excessive intervention resulting in losses of the original media; also called \u201cover-cleaning\u201d, or \u201cexcessive cleaning\u201d.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yay! Very handy. The only way the website could be any better is if they had a glossary for ethnographic objects. Which made me think, \u201chmm, what other glossaries might be out there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, in my search I found these gems:<\/p>\n

Paintings: <\/span>http:\/\/www.si.edu\/MCI\/english\/learn_more\/taking_care\/painting_glossary.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Scientific Research: <\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nga.gov\/resources\/scienceresearch\/glossary.shtm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

General: <\/span>http:\/\/www.netnebraska.org\/extras\/treasures\/glossary_of_terms.htm<\/span><\/a>
(Go Nebraska!)<\/p>\n

But the cream of the crop really has to be the MFA, Boston\u2019s CAMEO website:
<\/span>http:\/\/cameo.mfa.org\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard of this one before and have used it a few times in the past\u2026.but I don\u2019t think I truly appreciated just how great it really is. C\u2019mon\u2026.any glossary that includes <\/span>Silly Putty<\/span><\/a> in its list of definitions with an IR spectrum of it has definitely got it going on:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Material Name: Silly Putty\u00ae<\/strong>
Description<\/span><\/p>\n

[<\/span>Binney & Smith] A bouncing, rubbery polymer developed in 1943 by James Wright at General Electric. Silly Putty\u00ae is made from <\/span>silicone oil<\/span><\/a>
polymerized by the addition of <\/span>boric acid<\/span><\/a>. Peter Hodgson gave the bouncing rubber the name Silly Putty\u00ae in 1950 when he introduced it at the International Toy Fair in New York. Binney & Smith purchased the rights to the product in 1971. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Silly Putty\u00ae was put on display in the Smithsonian Institution.
<\/span>Synonyms and Related Terms:<\/strong> Potty Putty (Br.); Tricky Putty
Hazards and Safety:<\/strong> May leave silicone oil residue on contacted surfaces.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Additional InformationSilly Putty: <\/span>Website<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> IR spectrum of silly puttyTransmission spectrum. Sample prepared on zinc
selenide crystal. Credit: Infrared Spectroscopy Lab, Analytical Answers, Inc.,
Woburn, MA.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/blockquote>\n

Surely, there must be others out there. If you have websites that you use regularly, or that you\u2019ve heard of, please post them here! I would love to find out what other resources people in the field regularly use.<\/p>\n

Of course, it still might be nice to at least have a cardboard cutout of a conservator I can prop up on my back wall. I\u2019ve been thinking about adding this paper conservator to the department: <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a>
<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

She was posted by <\/span><\/p>\n

Rachel<\/span><\/a> on the ECPN blog before and I\u2019ve been told that she kind of resembles a mini-me. Frankly, I don\u2019t think my head is quite that square.
<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.luzrasante.com\/la-conservacion-un-juego-de-ninos\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, Katie and Rose \u2013 you\u2019ve convinced me to answer the call! Hello fellow ECPNers! Allow myself to introduce\u2026myself. My name is Crista Pack and I am currently employed by the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis as their Conservation Technician. Some might find this odd considering that there are no … Continue reading “Conservation Glossaries”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecpn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}