Conservation treatment

Barbara Appelbaum's assumption (Conservation DistList Instance:
13:52 Friday, April 21, 2000) that it is becoming a more common
attitude "that ideas about how to treat something come only from the
treatment  of the exact same kind of object" is perplexing. Of
course it is not always necessary to know all about the technology
of objects we treat. It, however, can be very helpful to know what
technologies and materials were involved especially if one is not
familiar with a particular type of artifact. Ms. Appelbaum may feel
over-burdened by the idea that we should know all about the
technology of objects we treat, I certainly don't. It comes with the
territory. It may or may not be relevant to the treatment of the
object. However, I would rather err on the side of too much
knowledge than too little. As we all know, treatments usually come
from general conservation expertise, but are oftentimes guided by
knowledge of a specific object or types of objects.


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:53
                  Distributed: Monday, April 24, 2000
                       Message Id: cdl-13-53-006
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