ConservationSpace update

In January of 2012, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded the
continued development of the ConservationSpace initiative. The goal
of ConservationSpace is to develop an open-source software
application that will address a core need of the conservation
community for a shared solution to the problem of documentation
management. The conservation community has long recognized that a
digital approach to managing its documentation would improve
continuity in procedures, increase access, expand research
opportunities, and better ensure the preservation of its documents.

The National Gallery of Art remained as the lead institution. Six
partner institutions also renewed their commitment to the project:
Courtauld Institute of Art, Denver Art Museum, Indianapolis Museum
of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Denmark's Statens Museum for
Kunst, and Yale University. The NGA and its partners are poised to
release the final Request for Proposals (RFP) and supporting
documentation that will bring a software developer on board to build
the first version of the system. Once the software developer is
selected, the work to develop a "core" version will begin. This
version will be a hosted BETA solution that will be tested by all of
the partner institutions. The first version of ConservationSpace
will focus on: examination (single object), examination or survey
(multiple objects), treatment (single object), treatment (multiple
objects), and basic document/system management.

On October 11, 2012 the NGA released, on behalf of the partners and
the conservation community, the Request for Proposals to hire the
developer to build the open source application. The full call for
proposals can be seen by visiting the Federal Business Opportunities
website at

    <URL:https://www.fbo.gov>

The deadline for submissions is November 13, 2012. The NGA and
project partners hope to award the contract by the end of 2012.

As part of the RFP development, the partners in working groups or
teams, created a substantial dossier of documents, notes, and
drawings to represent the "universe" of conservation work,
documentation, and data. The NGA and the ConservationSpace team
would like to direct interested parties to its Google work site.
Although final versions of critical project documents will continue
to be hosted on ConservationSpace.org, the Google site allows the
conservation community to see the process and considerable effort of
the partners behind the work to-date.

    <URL:https://sites.google.com/site/conservationspace/>
    <URL:http://www.conservationspace.org/Home.html>

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation continues to generously support
ConservationSpace, and the partner institutions remain committed to
this challenging and exciting project.

Christine E. McCarthy
Chief Conservator
Preservation Department
Yale University Library
130 Wall St.
New Haven, CT
203-432-1710


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 26:22
                 Distributed: Monday, October 22, 2012
                       Message Id: cdl-26-22-001
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