It is usually up to the owner of a distribution list to break the ice with an inaugural message. Since no one has preempted this initiative, I'll try to get the ball rolling by describing how the list came into being. During the 1977 Conference of the International Council of Museums in what was then called Leningrad, a group of musical instrument conservators decided to initiate production of two publications: the "Musical Instrument Conservation and Technology Newsletter" and the "Musical Instrument Conservation and Technology Journal". A few issues of the former appeared during the next two years but the latter never made it past its premiere issue. The masterminds of this noble but abortive project soon regrouped in an initiative which resulted in the founding of, "The Historical Instrument Conservators' Computer Users' Programming Society". (Does anybody remember when and where? It must have been during the early 80's.) This organization, although long dormant, still exists. While active, it produced a series of irregular publications about various aspects of computer applications to the field of conservation. The appearance of the Conservation Information Network in 1987 provided the Historical Instrument Conservators' Computer Users' Programming Society with a platform for establishing an on-line presence. The resulting special interest group triggered very little activity specifically related to musical instrument conservation and was perhaps somewhat before its time. During the first week of August 1994, the UK Museums and Gallery Commission assembled a greying quartet of veterans from these projects to serve as the faculty for a course in the care of musical instruments. Well before this time notions of network communication had become quite unexotic, if not downright commonplace. The course was planned by email and its participants will be remaining in contact via the same medium. During the week in London it was decided that our dear old MICAT might be worth a whirl in the form of an electronic distribution list. Doing so would also revive at least the spirit of the Historical Instrument Conservators' Computer Users' Programming Society. The result is what you now have on your screens. It is hoped that MICAT-L will generate useful discussion about the subjects listed in the message which you all should have received with your notices of subscription confirmation. The earliest subscribers may wish to note that that text has now been expanded to include relevant aspects of the "theory" as well as the techniques of conservation, and similarly to include the "history" as well as the technology of musical instruments. We're busy reexamining the earlier publications of MICAT and the Historical Instrument Conservators' Computer Users' Programming Society to see if any of that material is worth placing in the MICAT-L archives. (More about this later.) In the interim, how's about the members of this list shedding their veils of anonymity and introducing themselves and their interests to each other? Please remember that you will not be able to mail directly to micat-l@nrm.se, so be careful about the way your communications are addressed. Everything intended for MICAT-L must be sent to micatmod@nrm.se. We'll try to keep the turn-around time to the entire list as short as possible. Warmest regards to you all! Cary Karp <ck@nrm.se>
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Note: This is the first archived message in MICAT