Strategic Study On Movable Cultural Heritage Conservation

Movable cultural heritage conservation refers to all kinds of professional activities involved in prolonging the life span of movable cultural heritage in direct or indirect way. It has formed the tradition of technological conservation in its long history. However, modern conservation practice proves the fact that the conservation process is confined not only by technological barriers, but also the increasing lack of professional management, conservation law and professionals, little contribution of conservation organization, distribution of conservation standard, and etc. Therefore, to systematically summary international conservation experiences, to analyze the existential problems in detail along with to profoundly discuss modern conservation strategy will not only enrich conservation theory of movable cultural heritage and develop new growth point for conservation of cultural relics, documents and books as well, but also be helpful to integrate the conservation practice of relics, documents and books in different departments and institutions into the same platform, be beneficial to shift the practice to comprehensive conservation, integrated organization, concentrative management and holistic conservation strategy from technological conservation, departmental organization, distributed management, local conservation strategy.This dissertation fastens a theme of the conservation strategy on movable cultural heritage. A conservation strategy frame primarily has been developed by studying intensively "one base point" (the integration of departmental conservation), "two clues" (technology and management layers), "three disciplines" (heritage science, conservation science, complexity science), "six aspects" (preventive conservation, curative conservation, restoration, conservation organization, conservation laws and conservation information management). The author therefore, conforming to the scientific methods, integrates the quantitative with qualitative analysis basing on theoretical analysis and practical investigation. He also makes the abstract problems concrete, macro problems micro through case studies, so as to systematically develop the conservation strategy, precisely reveal the objective law and make sure the right development direction of movable cultural heritage.The dissertation consists of four parts, which primarily focus on two aspects-the dynamic push of conservation technologies and the pressing reform of main sections of management layer.Part 1 Movable cultural heritage and its conservationThe author who has explained three pairs of heritage concepts widely used in international heritage world reconstructs the logic relation among them to set up a new coordinate for them, in which movable cultural heritage belongs to the tote of man-made items with historical, cultural, art, science, technological and social values. Once being concrete, cultural relics, documents, books and craftworks separately stored in museums, archives, libraries and other cultural institutions belong to this collection. Therefore, movable cultural heritage has experienced a rather long history although it has just half a century in international conventions as a professional term. So has movable cultural heritage conservation because there were conservation technologies as movable cultural heritage appeared according to abroad and domestic records.Under the push of modern natural and technological science, movable cultural heritageconservation has been increasingly built on the basis of technological protection, forming the tradition of technological conservation. However, the technology-oriented movable cultural heritage conservation has been in dilemma: on the one hand, movable cultural heritage conservation was ignored at the spring tide of world natural and cultural heritage conservation; on the other hand, conservation is always confronted with unfit management, poor organization, unsound conservation codes, insufficient investment, incompetent specialists, and etc. How to resolve the problem is worth of thinking by modern conservators.Part 2 Movable cultural heritage conservation strategy based on complexity scienceComplexity science is reputed "a new science of 21st century", by which the author has proved the complexity of movable cultural heritage system through the explanation from system structure, its evolution and its correlation with the outside world. This complexity has, in turn, created an invisible barrier for instituting a global conservation strategy. Meanwhile, the national and international attribute of movable cultural heritage resources provides with the possibility and inevitability of forming a universe strategy for all nations.Based on the above analysis, a strategic goal has been summarized by the author as the coordinating the relationship of society, nature and human being involved in conservation activities to protect the movable cultural heritage resources by sharing conservation experiences, maintaining the authenticity of the resources for future use and even the sustainable development of human beings. He has further discussed the method of achieving the goal through the division of strategic goal and development of divided goals. When dividing the strategic goal, the author, at first decomposes it in the light of requirements of complexity science; then he makes clear every decomposed unit scientifically by AHP (The Analytic Hierarchy Process), a theory first created by T. Saaty; finally he constructs the overall evaluation layers-technology layer and management layer, and the item appraisal layers-preventive conservation, curative conservation, restoration, conservation research, conservation education, conservation law, relevant laws, conservation policy, social consciousness, investment and conservation information management. By AHP, the weighting of the overall evaluation layers and item appraisal layers has indicated the turns of each unit of this conservation system, forming the basis of developing the strategy of movable cultural heritage conservation. This analysis shows the fact that technology layer has yet played a leading role and should be the main part of modern conservation strategy; management layer, a catalyst in conservation, has also contributed a lot to conservation. Besides this relation, the harmonizing development between the overall evaluation layer and the item appraisal layer is needed. Only through the promoting of their harmonizing development can the conservation system create the "rushing" phenomenon.Certainly, the above analysis based on AHP relevant to strategic goal is theoretic and holistic, so different countries and institutions should adjust them to their practical conditions such European preventive conservation strategy.Part 3 Applying of movable cultural heritage conservation strategyBasing on the analysis of the overall evaluation layers and the item appraisal layers of conservation system, the author studies in detail the main aspects of conservation strategy in this part.From the point view of technology aspect, the author suggests a way of active technology push, by the clear recognizing of the passive technology conservation in the past. This kind of active push isinfluenced by many subjective and objective factors. Among them, the basic condition is to evaluate the value of collections, the environment of collections and the technologies applied, and the technology development concerning conservation and restoration is also necessary. The active push is a dynamic process, during which the relation of the previous controlling before the forming, the preventive conservation during the storing, the restoration after the destroying of movable heritage, as well as the whole collection, part collection and individual item, must be carefully considered. Only by this way can the traditional passive conservation be effectively turned into active conservation, which will lead to the further development of movable cultural heritage conservation and become the eudemon of movable cultural heritage.Next, the author analyzed three main aspects of management aspects and accordingly improves their occasions. Above all, due to the present departmental conservation, reengineering of conservation organizations should be taken into consideration. During the process of reengineering, a conservation administrative organization like national movable cultural heritage bureau or departmental coordinating committee should be set up as the leader of national conservation, while conservation process reengineering for every institution is also necessary, whose plan and method is studied in detail in this dissertation. Then, because the international conservation laws are not perfect enough and national conservation laws are seldom established, the author suggests the possibility of forming a harmonious legal system of movable cultural heritage by connecting and developing coordinately of national and international conservation laws. Finally, by studying the contradict of the exiting conservation information and the need of users, the author puts forward some suggestions, such as constructing an independent conservation information management for the professional institutions, while an inlaid conservation information management system for the general institutions. The latter can adds the conservation information of every collection to the existing MIS to trace the quality of collections for conservation reference. Besides, the interorganizational conservation information system is also needed from macro aspect.Part 4 ConclusionThe author summarized in brief the conclusion of this dissertation. By briefly analyzing the present situation of movable cultural heritage conservation in China, he puts forward some suggestions, for examples, to promote the conservation consciousness by the interosculation of the concept "heritage" widely used in the world and the word "cultural relics" formed in our history, by recognizing the movable cultural heritage in daily life, or by enriching the social activities like heritage month or heritage day, and to know fairly well national movable cultural heritage by investigating and making rules to list them. How to strengthen the conservation administration, organize the conservation teamwork, integrate the national conservation research, set up the professional education, integrate the relevant disciplines and build conservation management system is also discussed as well.(20 Diagrams, 23 tables, 9 case studies, 8 appendixes)...