In this episode, Jason Church speaks with Curtis Deselles, an intern with the Materials Research program at NCPTT, discusses the use of eddy currents and eddy current technology in conservation science. Mr. Deselles has built several eddy current analyzers, custom software, and presented on this topic at a non-destructive conference in St. Louis.

NCPTT has been using eddy current technology in preservation and will be bringing this tool to the iPhone platform in 2010. Download Episode 8 as an mp3 or subscribe via iTunes.

A good plan can determine whether a cultural collection survives a disaster or fades into memory. And while nature can be unpredictable, the online disaster-planning portal “dPlan” offers a streamlined, reliable way for institutions to protect their cultural collections. Created through funding by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, dPlan is a free, online tool that allows cultural institutions to complete a customizable disaster plan for their organizations. NEDCC, a nonprofit regional center for the preservation and conservation of paper-based materials, and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), developed the tool.

This project involved developing a new method for using the chemical content of freshwater mussel shell as a means of sourcing prehistoric, shell-tempered pottery and shell artifacts to their places of origin. By extension, this means that prehistoric trade and exchange networks can be mapped out.

Because each waterway is chemically different to some extent, and because mussels incorporate the chemicals into their shells, it is theoretically possible to identify where shell artifacts or shell-tempered pottery was made by chemically analyzing the shell.

Co-organized for the first time with the Chinese State Administrator of Cultural Heritage, this
is the fourth course on “Preventive Conservation-Reducing Risks to Collections” held by ICCROM, in partnership with the Canadian Conservation Institute and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage.

After the Fire: Salvaging the Stores of the Department of Archaeology & Natural History
AIC Disaster Response & Recovery
Archeological Resource Damage Assessment: Legal Basis and Methods
CPP Pocket Response Plan for Collections
Conserve-O-Grams. A series of 11 National Park Service publications covering disaster recovery topics like salvaging water-damaged collections (paper, non-paper archives, textiles, natural history collections), health [...]

Conserve O Gram 21-01: Health And Safety Hazards Arising From Floods
Conserve O Gram 21-02: An Emergency Cart For Salvaging Water-Damaged Objects
Conserve O Gram 21-03: Salvage Of Water-Damaged Collections: Salvage At A Glance
Conserve O Gram 21-04: Salvage At A Glance, Part I: Paper Based Collections
Conserve O Gram 21-05: Salvage [...]

The Library of Congress, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and NCPTT hosted a Summit of Preservation Scientists in Washington D.C., July 24-25, 2008.

Anna Johnson, a high-school junior at the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts, took NCPTT research to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, Atlanta, Ga. on May 11-16.

NCPTT recently provided technical assistance to the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum in Shreveport regarding concerns about the condition of several archeological copper objects associated with the Gahagan burials that were excavated in the 1930s.

When Union ships sunk the English blockade runner Modern Greece off the coast of North Carolina in 1862, Confederates at nearby Fort Fisher wasted little time in salvaging munitions from the vessel. Nearly 150 years later, what they left behind is helping make history in preservation research.

This project will devise protocols for the fusion of commercially available synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data with commercially available multispectral data for the inventory of archaeological sites.

NCPTT’s David W. Morgan participated in “Mobile XRF in Museums: Applications for Anthropology and Natural History Collections.”

NCPTT’s Heritage Education and Archeology and Collections programs are developing a workshop in conjunction with Dr. John Jameson of the NPS Southeast Archeology Center.

NCPTT has created a new research priority for its grants program targeting the field of archeology.

NCPTT materials conservator Jason Church was selected from applicants across the United States to participate in the 2006 Metals Conservation Summer Institute.

NCPTT worked in conjunction with the American Institute for Conservation to produce the workshop series, “After the Storm: Recovery of Wet Collections,” which was held in March.