AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

The process of conservation documentation in the course of treatment is intrinsic to the ethical transmission of the conservator’s work. It records the state of an object before, during and after the changes brought about by treatment. It provides a chronicle of decisions made and actions taken. It is also meant to exist in perpetuity with the treated object as a critical archive of change in history over time. Considering the significant value that the process of documentation holds in understanding a collection object, it is strange to think that conservation documentation is rarely if ever easily accessible to researchers or scholars outside the holding institution. Especially given the impact that conservation work can have on the scholarly interpretation, why is our documentation not more widely available?

In the spring of 2022, following a substantial catalog migration, a small, interdisciplinary team at the University of Illinois Library decided to undertake the above question. Specifically, they hoped to pilot a project that allowed historic conservation documentation to be linked to existing catalog records for special collection items and view through the U of I’s existing Digital Library platform. Such a tool would allow for the conservation history of collection items to be a part of academic interpretation, but furthermore, could directly point to the time and care taken for our collections, as well as an access point for conservation education to bring our otherwise “behind-the-scenes" field to the fore.

A straightforward idea in theory, the team quickly found a complex matrix of considerations to make this tool a reality. Creating a metadata profile in the absence of a clear and controlled vocabulary, or even consistent application of terms or writing conventions from practitioner to practitioner, was the first of multiple challenges. Making pragmatic choices for the user interface was yet another. The degree to which the treating practitioner was identified, a further question still. To what extent are we responsible to provide context for understanding conservation treatment documentation in addition to making it accessible? and would each of the U of I Library’s Special Collections have equal enthusiasm for having their collection objects represented to the public in this way? This paper discusses the pathway towards truly making our conservation documentation fully accessible and the success and set-backs we are encountering along the way.