NCPTT-funded Website Grows into a Comprehensive Tool for Materials Researchers
Don’t let the name fool you. The Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia Online (CAMEO) promises to play much more than a small role as a reference tool for preservation professionals.
Funded by a 1998 PTTGrant, the CAMEO electronic database compiles, defines, and disseminates technical information on the distinct collection of terms, materials, and techniques used in the fields of art conservation and historic preservation. According to Michele Derrick of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston, the PTT Grant allowed the database to grow beyond its original programming.
“The database was formerly called the Conservation and Art Materials Dictionary,” Derrick said. “While the database was originally conceived as a potential reference book, NCPTT provided the encouragement and financing to develop CAMEO as an interactive database.” Additional resources and support from the MFA enabled a draft version of the database to be placed on the internet in November 2000.
CAMEO’s breadth of information is what sets it apart from other sites that target specific audiences with highly-detailed, but narrowly-focused information. By cross-referencing and providing contexts for the preservation research included in the database, researchers with a narrow focus can discover a broader view of their subject matter. Derrick says this holistic understanding is important.
“The art conservation and historic preservation fields rely implicitly on knowledge gained from education, experience, colleagues, and reference sources in order to interpret material evidence on artifacts and understand its context within our cultural heritage,” she said. “This knowledge base is necessarily broad because artifacts, sites, and treatment methods can include any combination of materials that have been used in the history of mankind.”
CAMEO is not the first online database to address the needs of materials preservationists; however, most have either become obsolete or contain one-sentence descriptions. The database’s ability to grow also enables it to account for ever more complex technical and analytical processes, as well as new materials and trends in preservation.
CAMEO is being revised with an upgraded software structure and increased content coverage through funding by a 2002 Institute for Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant. During this two-year grant period, the coverage of CAMEO is being expanded to include additional records, images and hyperlinks to other websites.
Derrick anticipates that by upgrading CAMEO, conservators will no longer need to use multiple sources for basic information on various types of materials. Instead, the database will consolidate the textual and visual information from the different conservation specialties into one centralized compendium. The internet then provides the necessary medium to deliver the merged information freely to preservationists around the world.