Volume 10, Number 1
Feb 1986

Mobile Labs

Australia's bicentennial is coming up, and this has given impetus to conservation there, just as our bicentennial did in the United States. Two organizations in New South Wales are planning to put mobile labs into service as a direct result:

Regional Galleries Association of New South Wales, and the Museums Association of Australia (NSW Branch). Funding has not yet been approved for the Galleries Association, but if it is, the mobile lab will be used mainly for conservation of works of art on paper, and paintings.

The NSW Branch of the Museums Association launched their Mobile Conservation Unit on October 4, 1985 with funding from the Real Estate Institute of NSW, after an eight-week study tour of Canadian museums focussing on their extension programs. The lab will be used mainly as a base for non-treatment conservation services: surveying and reporting on environmental conditions, consulting, demonstrating techniques, demonstrating and selling appropriate conservation materials (acid-free tissue, encapsulation materials, etc.), transporting people and materials to workshops, and taking artifacts to Sydney for treatment when necessary.