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1993
Journal Article
Titel
Assessment and monitoring the environment of cultural property
Abstract
Damage to cultural property is caused by environmental pollution in museums, lbraries and historic buildings. Indoor pollutants originate for the most part from heating systems, storage conditions, electrical equipments, activities of visitors and staff, outgassing of structural or decorative materials, and by the intrusion of outdoor pollutants. Here are immense economic costs of conservation and restauration in this field. Humidity, light, and air pollution are the concern of conservators and curators. All kinds of materials are vulnerable to the attack of indoor pollutants. Up to now only some museums ars monitoring indoor pollution at all. This is due to high costs and to the highly sophisticated technical equipement needed for monitoring indoor environment. Another problem is that the knowledge of single data does not give the information of the impact of these parameters on cultural property. Therefor, a low cost and easy to handle technique for monitoring and assessing the indoo r environment is needed by those institutions who deal with works of art. It will provide a better understanding of the environments to which cultural property is exposed and prevention and adequate protection measures can be employed.