In answer to Milton and the others, expressing concern about so
tight a definition, that there may be danger of its collapse:
I don't think it would be all that bad and dreadful to set up a
glossary accompagniing the defintion or, in that case, the whole
ICOM statuts and code of ethics.
There are words in a museum / heritage context which are used
differently: by different people, in a particular linguistic, geo-political
or local area, according to traditions or willfull decision. It
would help to have these definitions written down somewhere,
where they also could serve as a reference. As time and context
will change, it might be sufficient to change certain glossary definitions
to "adapt" the statuts or/and the code of ethics - the main
definition may hold nevertheless.
Samples of such terms :
- In the Anglosaxon linguistic areas, "Preservation" is more likely to be
used as a generic for the description of activities which make survive
cultural heritage.
An Anglosaxon example from this mornings ConsDistList 17:42
"The Library of Congress Preservation Directorate announces the tenth
event in its series of lectures on Topics in Preservation Science"
Continental Europe uses the term "Conservation" as the word
in case (besides France, see below).
To me these terms don't seem to carry the same meaning : in Bernices
defintion 2, I would prefer "preservation" as the larger umbrella term,
to "conservation". But in view of my profession (conservator-restorer)
and the problems of its recognition as an essentiallity for the
heritage field I tent to want to stay with the term "Conservation";
as we call ourselves conservators, conservator-restorers or restorers,
(again) depending where. The National Museums of France use
"restoration" as the allover generic term for preservation/conservation
- defined and published by Segolène Bergeon.
There are more of those Multisense terms, some were evocated in several
contributions to this discussion like "society", "knowledge", "scientific
heritage" - and particularly "permanence".
It might be a good thing to do that glossary.
HCI
p.s. I'll be happy to make the bibliographic data of my citations avaiable
to everyone who asks for.
Hans-Christoph von Imhoff
Assistant Coordinator
ICOM-CC Working group
Theorie and History of Conservation
31, Blvd. de Pérolles
1700 Fribourg / Switzerland
tel 0041 (0)26 321 14 44
fax 0041 (0)26 321 14 40
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