Review of Recording, Documentation, Information Management for the Conservation of Heritage Places [Book]

Abstract

When one considers the enormous variety and diversity of heritage assets across the world ranging from buried remains to extant buildings, historic landscapes to submerged wrecks, tackling the thorny issues of recording, documentation and information management in a single publication is always going to be a challenge. Add into the mix the breadth of documentation likely to arise from or be required by conservation projects such as research-driven laser scanning and computer modelling of a world heritage site, a conservation management plan archive, or the more modest output from the construction of an extension to a listed building, then trying to set out principles to ensure consistent high quality and accessible data that can be applied across the world, is no mean objective. As the eminently sensible Kate Clark points out in the opening paper in volume 2 of this publication, "Understanding the physical fabric of a site is an important first step in finding the right conservation strategy, and documentation is the first step in understanding". This book offers case studies, arguments and a framework for integrating documentation into the conservation process and claims to offer new concepts and ideas to advance the field. It puts forward a clear set of twelve principles and guidelines which it suggests will help heritage managers and decision makers in ensuring that they succeed in understanding their roles and responsibilities. In doing so, the authors believe this will help them to choose the correct documentation strategy for their project.

Keywords

• archaeology
• conservation
• management
• information management
• conservation principles