Questionnaire on in situ preservation of underwater archaeological materials

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I am a Masters student in Graduate Program of Maritime Archaeology,
Department of Archaeology, Flinders University. I am undertaking
research for a thesis on the subject of "Exploring Practitioner's
Attitudes Towards In Situ Preservation and Storage for Underwater
Cultural Heritage."

In situ forms of preservation and storage have, in the past few
years, been consistently emphasised as the preferred option under
most circumstances for conserving underwater and waterlogged
cultural heritage for future generations. Until recently, there was
very little scientific investigation conducted into in situ
preservation, especially that focusing on long term evaluation. With
the pending adoption of the UNESCO 2001 Convention, it is imperative
that current approaches and trends among practitioners be identified
and evaluated. This research aims at identifying current research
trends in utilising in situ procedures as an effective strategy for
dealing with submerged archaeological sites. It will review current
methods utilized by researchers and practitioners of conservation
and archaeology and what implications continuing research has on
this practice.

I am currently looking for volunteers to assist in this project by
completing a questionnaire which covers certain aspects of this
topic. This questionnaire will be available via the software
SurveyMonkey and should take no longer than 30 minutes to complete.
Should you feel more comfortable completing the survey on paper, a
request may be made via post or email. Please keep in mind that,
while questionnaires completed online through SurveyMonkey are
encrypted with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), any information sent
through electronic delivery or the Internet cannot be guaranteed to
be sent through a secure medium.

This project has been approved by the Flinders University Social and
Behavioural Research Ethics Committee. Be assured that any
information provided will be treated in the strictest confidence in
compliance with university policy and none of the participants will
be individually identifiable in the resulting thesis, report or
other publications. You are, of course, entirely free to discontinue
your participation at any time or to decline to answer particular
questions.

If you are interested in participating in this questionnaire, please
contact me at ortm0004<-a t->flinders< . >edu< . >au.

Nicole Ortmann
Department of Archaeology
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
Adelaide, SA 5001
Australia


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:12
                 Distributed: Saturday, August 23, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-22-12-019
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