Workshop: HERIe and GoGreen go to Tokyo

IKiFP together with Japanese partners are organizing a workshop on HERIe, which is a freely available digital preventive conservation platform for decision support. HERIe (herie.pl) allows conservators to assess risk against environmental conditions, and provides remote quantitative risk assessment in a variety of situations. The workshop will be held on December 17^th at the Conservation Science Laboratory of Tokyo Geidai. The workshop aims to present the advantages of the HERIe tool, as well as to collect data and learn about the needs of conservators working in hot and humid climates.

A rational strategy for effective and sustainable collection preservation in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM institutions) requires an understanding of the relationship between the magnitude of a threat and the damage caused. In order to support the international community of GLAM institutions and conservation professionals in assessing the safety of display and storage conditions for collections, HERIe provides remote access to quantitative assessment of risks to heritage assets. The platform contains modules corresponding to the environmental agents of deterioration: air pollutants, light, incorrect temperature or relative humidity as well as a module allowing the user to estimate the magnitude of fire risk. Risks from environmental conditions are assessed by analysing data uploaded by the user for a space in which an object is displayed or stored. The effect of moving an object from one environment to another, a frequent problem when loans for exhibitions are made, can also be assessed. The platform is being developed by several institutions with financial support from the European Commission, as well as the GoGreen project and the Getty Conservation Institute. The developed software, the first of its kind in the world, has been made freely available under the HERIe name for anyone involved in the preservation of collections.

The upcoming workshop on December 17th is organised with the aim of training the end user – registrars, conservators, collection managers, preventive conservation scientists, tutors and educators, and disseminating recent achievements in the translation of complex scientific models and data into practical tools useful in the cultural heritage field. The workshop will have a hands-on character where the participants can practice with datasets.