From Lima to Canton and Beyond: MOLAB and DigiLab research infrastructure for closing the gap between the resource rich and resource poor

IIC (International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works) Lima Congress 2024

Lima. Perú
Conference. 2024

Access to research infrastructure for heritage science is the best way of narrowing the gap between the resource rich and the resource poor institutions in knowledge of their collections. Here we demonstrate a novel workflow that streamlines the data collection by mobile lab (MOLAB) followed by a DIGILAB platform for data processing, analysis and interpretation. The data collection and processing are taken care of by heritage science specialists, while the data analysis and interpretation can be performed collaboratively with conservators and curators. MOLAB with specialist personnel and mobile scientific instruments can sometimes be aided by FIXLAB equipment and personnel from resource rich institutions to help the resource poor institutions. The aim is to widen participation in the adoption of heritage science and material analysis in understanding and conservation of collections, while ensuring high quality, efficient and reliable data collection, processing and interpretation. The approach taken in this project intertwin MOLAB, FIXLAB, DIGILAB and ARCHLAB access to achieve extra benefit through adding further expert-assisted data analysis and interpretation capabilities enabled by new DIGILAB data processing and visualisation tools.

Material analysis. Spectral imaging. Raman spectroscopy. XRF. FTIR. Machine learning. Artificial intelligence. Research infrastructure for heritage science.