The recent and no doubt to-continue contratemps regarding white-out and nail
polish has raised some issues in our office.  After my reaction (indignant)
to Anita Cohen-Williams missive and the somewhat snotty reply of another (I
was going to send something equally nasty, fortunately my e-mail doesn't
always work)  my co-workers and I started discussing this issue.  We come
from varied backgrounds but are predominately archeologists who have been
exposed to museum work (no ill-effects yet).
 
The question is this:  Has anyone bothered to do real empirical studies?
I've heard and read a lot of opinions but haven't yet seen "...we exposed the
samples to an intense UV light source for x number of days..."   Quality
testing is pretty common in industry:  paint companies expose paint to UV
light, firehoses, etc., etc.     If our little cottage industry has been
doing this, I'm unaware of it.
 
So, perhaps some of the professional conservators out there could relieve my
ignorance.   Who does empirical studies (I'm not interested in opinions) on
the stability, etc., of archival materials and where is that information
published?  If they don't and it isn't, maybe it should be.
 
 
Jim Barnes
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
1222 Spruce St.
PD-AC
St. Louis, MO   63103
(314) 331-8863
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