EDITORIAL

As the thickness of this issue attests, the Journal has been fortunate lately to receive a number of excellent manuscripts. We can always use more, of course, and in particular we should like to receive more presentations of practical use, such as descriptions of innovative or ingenious treatments or new materials developments. The brief note in our last issue, by Pamela Hatchfield on a new fill material for the conservation of a wooden object, should serve as a model of the kind of paper we need. It was brief, explicit, well illustrated, and of immediate application in practical conservation.

It may be that practical conservators are less attuned than research scientists to the necessity of publication for professional advancement. (I refer both to one's personal career and to the field more generally.) And, certainly, many conservators who dedicate themselves to manual and visual tasks are not inclined to verbalize, at least not in writing. Yet a short paper on an interesting treatment would, at the least, keep others from reinventing the wheel, and each advance in technique or material that any of us makes has the potential to inspire additional progress among all the rest of us. May I urge you all to consider the great value of publishing on subjects of practical value to the profession and to submit manuscripts to the Journal.