Keynote Speaker
Fenella France
Heritage Science Exposed
Solving heritage challenges through applied spectroscopy is one of the lesser known science fields. There are infinitely diverse materials that exist within cultural heritage and multiple issues with how they degrade over time. The more well-known materials are paper, parchment, inks, colorants, musical instruments, ceramics, and sound recordings, with the interactions within multicomponent collection items providing a plethora of degradation mechanisms. Challenges posed by heritage materials are exacerbated given the need for no impact on rare collection items, so objects and documents are usually only examined with non-invasive analytical techniques to understand their condition and composition, in particular utilizing imaging and spectroscopies. The approach is often a forensic-like methodology to recreate the history of use, the impact of various environmental parameters and provenance. Examining the chemical composition of these materials is critical to understanding how they can be preserved, and further complicated by the way they are impacted by environmental parameters or stabilization treatments, as well as the inherent properties that can make some materials at higher risk.
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A key to linking complementary analyses is spectral imaging that allows mapping of the chemical response across a whole object, while revealing previously hidden information. Utilizing multiple complementary spectroscopies is akin to object archaeology, looking below the layers to reveal history, degradation, and construction techniques. The utilization of scientific reference samples – the Center for Heritage Analytical Reference Materials (CHARM) – is a key aspect in recreating the unknown history of materials, where aging samples illustrates spectral shifts due to treatments, environment or time.
Fenella G. France, Chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division, Library of Congress, is an international specialist on environmental deterioration to cultural objects. She has developed a research infrastructure that integrates heritage and scientific data and also focuses on data visualization. Her team is expanding the use of portable instrumentation through the “go-team” and the development of heritage reference materials that support investigation and preservation of cultural heritage. Dr. France has worked on projects including World Trade Centre Artifacts, Ellis Island Immigration Museum, Llullaillaco High Altitude Museum in Chile, and the 1507 Waldseemüller World Map. She collaborates extensively with academic, cultural, forensic and federal institutions. She was the PI on a Mellon funded project to scientifically assess the condition of print materials in USA research libraries. Other international collaborations include; Inks&Skins, University College Cork, Ireland, Collections Demography, SEAHA doctoral training, Beast2Craft Biocodicology project, and CHaNGE – Cultural Heritage Analysis for New Generations.
