ConservationSpace

An open source application for conservation documentation: The
design phase

    <URL:http://www.conservationspace.org>

With funding from the Research in Information Technology Program of
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation <URL:http://rit.mellon.org>, two
community design meetings for conservation documentation will be
held in 2009, the first in early March at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, primarily for North American participants; the second
in early April at the National Gallery, London, primarily for UK and
European participants.

The focus of these meetings is solely on the requirements, as
described by professional conservators and conservation scientists,
for a software application that would support and help to manage
their work, its documentation, and related scientific data. This
narrow focus on design is intended to increase the likelihood of
achieving a comprehensive requirements document for application
development later in the process, while setting aside for the
present the related topics of specific technology and standards.
(Because it will be difficult for conservators to discuss
requirements without mentioning standards, two experts will note and
record standards-related issues for later discussion, so that the
meetings can retain their focus on the functional requirements.)

The core team, listed on the website, has been selected from a broad
range of potential participants for these meetings, taking into
account their individual engagement with information technology as
well as their conservation and science expertise.  Serving in an
advisory capacity, they identified potential participants from a
variety of collecting institutions: libraries, archives, and museums
of art, archeology, anthropology, natural history, and science.

While the number of participants that could be accommodated at each
of these meetings is necessarily limited, all resulting documents
will be public and available for community comment and input.  This
includes narrative summaries of the discussions as well as initial
drafts of a requirements document for the development of an
application. It is expected that there will be two such public
drafts before a final document is prepared at the end of 2009. Their
availability will be announced to the conservation field, and
feedback will be solicited, as widely as possible.

The website identified above has additional information on the core
project team, closely related efforts, and the full narrative from
the application to the Research in Information Technology Program at
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Kenneth Hamma
Project Manager
310-270 8008


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:45
                Distributed: Tuesday, February 10, 2009
                       Message Id: cdl-22-45-001
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