AIC

I appreciate the discussion raised by Niccolo and Barbara about JAIC
and treatment articles.  I frequently hear of the perception by some
AIC members that treatment articles are discouraged by JAIC.
However, our Guidelines for Authors published in the back of each
issue states, "The Journal considers articles on subjects of
interest to professional conservators.  Subjects may include
conservation treatment case studies; issues of conservation history,
philosophy, or method; conservation research; or technical studies
aimed at addressing questions in allied fields."

An article is never rejected simply because it is a treatment
article rather than a report of scientific research; nor are
reviewers in general more harsh on treatment papers than they are on
research papers.  It can be unpleasant to read a negative review of
our work, and most professionals who publish have plenty of
anecdotes about review comments we strongly disagree with.
Nevertheless, most of the time JAIC reviews are conscientiously
done; our reviewers sometimes spend many hours reading a paper and
writing very detailed reviews.  One thing to keep in mind is that
the JAIC reviewers are "us"--the AIC membership.  Except for rare
occasions when we must seek technical expertise from an allied
field, reviewers come from the AIC membership.  At JAIC we are
trying very hard to use a broad range of conservators and scientists
as reviewers.

Other efforts to broaden the base of opinions and expertise brought
to bear on JAIC submissions include the addition in 1994 of the
Senior Editor position in addition to an Editor-in-Chief, and
expansion of the editorial board to include 14 associate editors
representing many conservation specialties.

Barbara was quite right, however, that the mix of papers published
in JAIC reflects the range of submissions we receive.  Research
oriented papers do tend to predominate.  Still, JAIC has published
many high quality treatment articles in the recent past.  Just a few
examples include, "The Care and Conservation of Glass Chandeliers,"
vol. 37(2); "The Treatment of an Odilon Redon Chin Colle Lithograph,
L'Art Celeste," vol. 37(3); and "When Patching is Impractical:
Nontraditional Compensation for Loss in a Quilt," vol. 38(3).
Practical treatment oriented work predominated in two recent special
issues of the journal, one on fill materials organized by the
Objects Specialty Group for vol. 37(1) and the recent Spring 2000
issue with 14 papers, vol. 39(1).

Many of JAIC's research articles are very directly related to
treatment issues, reporting on tests of potential treatments and/or
materials for treatments, and often include conservators as
co-authors or sole author, so drawing the line between types of
articles is not always easy.  One example is, "Cyclododecane:
Technical Note on Some Uses in Paper and Objects Conservation," vol.
38(2).

JAIC also occasionally receives and publishes papers focused on
conservation history, such as "Alfred Lucas: Egypt's Sherlock
Holmes," in vol. 36(1) and philosophical essays such as
"Conservation and the Antiquities Trade," also in vol. 36(1).

We encourage more submissions of treatment articles; we also welcome
more submissions on historical or philosophical issues, in addition
to scientific papers.  We will make every attempt to identify
qualified and fair reviewers for your topic.  I also encourage any
members interested in volunteering to be a reviewer to contact me or
an associate editor in your specialty.

Chandra Reedy, JAIC Editor-in-Chief


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:5
                   Distributed: Monday, July 17, 2000
                        Message Id: cdl-14-5-007
                                  ***