provides conservation staff in museums, historic buildings and archives with a new preventive conservation strategy for the protection of cultural property, based on an early warning system assessing the environmental impact on organic objects.

Objects in European museums are affected

All over Europe objects in museums and historic buildings are being affected either by display or by storage conditions because of unsuitable environmental conditions. A broad range of these cultural objects are made of organic materials. The key to the survival of these objects is achieving an acceptable indoor environment. Vital to this is a sustainable management including preventive conservation strategies.

The MASTER dosimeters and preventive conservation strategy

In the MASTER project, dosimeters have been developed that measure the amount of combined or individual environmental parameters that degrade organic museum objects. The two dosimeter systems are a generic early warning dosimeter for organic objects (EWO-G) and a specific early warning dosimeter for organic objects (EWO-S) . They include dosimeter holders for exposure at location and portable measurement instruments. The use of both dosimeter systems are integrated with a novel preventive conservation strategy developed in the project.

Final Workshop
The results from the MASTER project were presented in a final workshop 10 –11 January 2006. The presentations are now available.

The results from the MASTER project were presented in a final workshop 10 –11 January 2006. The presentations are now available.

Workshop presentations             Read more about the project

EWO-G portable measurement instrument and dosimeter holder

EWO-S portable measurement instrument and dosimeter holder