Interdisciplinary collaborations drive innovation in cultural heritage preservation

RIT’s interdisciplinary collaborations enrich research across the university and beyond. Two of these collaborative projects recently received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of a total $22.6 million in grants given to support humanities projects across the nation.

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Juilee Decker, David Messinger, and other collaborators developed a low-cost multispectral imaging system for historic artifacts (MISHA) during a previous NEH grant project. Here, the pair discuss the system with their team of three undergraduate students who work in their Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab.

Many of the grants—including the two received by RIT—make “significant investments in the fields of conservation science research and training to help find better ways to preserve materials and collections,” according to the NEH press announcement.

Emma Richardson, director of research for RIT’s Image Permanence Institute (IPI), and Changfeng Ge, professor in the Department of Packaging and Graphic Media Science, received $342,000 to support their investigation into the application of phase change materials (PCMs) in collections care.

Juilee Decker, professor and director of the museum studies program, and David Messinger, professor and Xerox Chair in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, received nearly $350,000 to support community education and training in multispectral imaging for historical artifacts, marking the next phase of their ongoing work to develop a low-cost multispectral imaging system, MISHA.

Sustainable innovation in collections care

Ge and Richardson aim to find a cost- and energy-efficient solution to climate control needs for historic artifacts and archival materials by exploring the use of PCMs as a sustainable preventative conservation measure for temperature control.

They first collaborated on a research project aimed at assessing the performance of sealed frame packages used to transit paper-based objects. The data indicated that big swings in temperature presented the most significant change within the microclimate, which was contrary to the field’s widely held assumption that humidity posed the greatest threat to objects during transit.

Because the data was unexpected, Richardson and her team consulted Ge’s knowledge of packaging science. That collaboration inspired them to work together on this new project to explore how PCMs might provide a solution to microclimate control in museums, libraries, and archives.

“PCMs are used a lot in medical and pharmaceutical packaging. Some of those products, like vaccines, need to maintain a temperature between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius,” said Ge, co-principal investigator. “The temperatures in a transit can change drastically from day to night, and seasonally. PCMs help us control the microenvironment in that packaging.”

Richardson emphasized that not all objects are vulnerable to fluctuations in temperature. The goal of this research is to provide guidelines and flexibility for sustainably maintaining acceptable environmental conditions for storage, display, and transit of at-risk objects.

“Historically, the field of preservation has attempted to maintain near-constant temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius and 50 percent relative humidity surrounding objects, but it is very expensive to maintain these conditions, and it comes at an environmental cost,” said Richardson, co-principal investigator. “However, the vast majority of museum and archive collections can be safely exposed to some degree of dynamic change to their environment, and we’re very keen to ensure that people understand that some change is fine, but it is dependent on the context and sensitivity of the objects at hand.”

Some of the variables they will test include determining which PCMs, if any, would be suitable for use in collections care and preservation; examining the effectiveness of this application of PCMs over time; and simulating short-term temperature changes in a variety of microclimates that could be seen in the field, including sealed frame shipping packaging, vitrine displays, and storage enclosures.

At the end of the funding period, Ge and Richardson aim to provide cost-effectiveness and risk analyses to inform guidelines for adoption by collections care professionals, as well as an online webinar to share their findings with industry professionals.

The research team carrying out this work include Ge, Richardson, and the following scholars from IPI: ; Emily Bernal, sustainable preservation specialist; Marvin Cummings, research scientist; and Meredith Noyes, research scientist.

Cultivating communities of practice

Decker and Messinger are embarking on the next phase of their work to develop and disperse a relatively low-cost Multispectral Imaging System for Historic Artifacts (MISHA). On the heels of a previous NEH preservation and access research and development grant, this new education and training grant will help them expand access to MISHA and cultivate communities of practice across the globe.

Decker said that, while it seems obvious, the people conducting the research have a significant impact on what is selected to be imaged.

“If you’re a well-endowed institution like the National Gallery of Art, the works from which you’re choosing are ‘museum-worthy’ acquisitions,” said Decker. “When you put these tools in the hands of individuals across an entire swath of professions, the selection of objects is much greater and more diverse. It’s about inverting the canonicity around what is worthy to be imaged.”

The pair will partner with the following institutions to increase awareness, expand access, and empower more individuals to use this technology:

• The Society for Imaging Science and Technology.
• The Digital Scholarship Section of the American Library Association.
• The American Institute for Conservation’s Imaging Working Group.
• The Rare Book School, based at the University of Virginia.

Under this grant, they are developing two avenues for learning and engagement in cultural heritage imaging. One is an online, asynchronous course focusing on cultural heritage imaging literacy that will launch later this year through RIT Certified. The other is a series of on-campus workshops focusing on the use of the MISHA system.

“The long-term goal is that RIT plays a role internationally in helping people learn more about their own cultural heritage,” said Messinger. “The interdisciplinarity of this research is a big part of our success. You really must bring both sides to the table; the science and technology side, and the humanities.”

Efforts to cultivate these communities, both nationally and internationally, began prior to this grant. Their previous NEH grant, funded in 2020, yielded a growing community of MISHA users worldwide, now numbering approximately 15 institutions.

One of these is in Croatia, where current Fulbright Scholar Izzy Moyer ’24 (museum studies) delivered a MISHA system to The State Archives in Dubrovnik. In addition, a grant from the Whiting Foundation allowed for the deployment of two MISHA systems to Colombia. In the states, Tom Rieger ’74 (photography), formerly the head of digitization at the Library of Congress, helped the team form a partnership between the Library and RIT.

The MISHA team has also partnered with the Cary Graphic Arts Collection, the Vignelli Center for Design Studies, NTID’s Dyer Arts Center, and RIT Libraries’ Digitization Lab on campus.

Email misha@rit.edu to learn more.