Useful resources for people wanting to document, conserve, restore and display large technology heritage.
The Good Practice Wheel. The Good Practice Wheel helps to combine the intricacies of conserving a listed UNESCO World Heritage site with urban development planning and the negotiations needed between them. The wheel can be used as an analytical tool for scientific research and for supportive systematization in the practical field. There was a case study at the Zollverein Industrial Complex that used The Good Practice Wheel.
Indumap. The manual for dealing with industrial monuments. A methodology for the preservation of industrial monuments using examples and made available online as a manual. The project was funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation in 2009-2012. The project was led by the DBM , cooperation partners are the LWL Industrial Museum , the Zollverein Foundation and others.
APT Building Technology Heritage Library. The Building Technology Heritage Library (BTHL) is primarily a collection of architectural trade catalogs, house plan books, and technical building guides. Trade catalogs are an important primary source to document past design and construction practices. These materials can aid in the preservation and conservation of older structures as well as other research goals. The BTHL is hosted by the Internet Archive as a free public access site for documents in the public domain.
Building Conservation. Large selection of well-organised articles about conserving buildings, and the objects and materials within them. Includes lots of information about old materials and techniques created by Cathedral Communications Limited.
DOCUMENTING INDUSTRY: How and Why? Created by Peter Du Rietz & Anna Lindgren. Do you wish to document and record an industry or an industrial activity, yet remain uncertain of the positive effects that it can deliver? Do you represent an industrial company and now need to make a decision concerning a possible documentation project with other interested parties? You may, on the other hand, be working in the heritage sector or be actively engaged in some society or association such as a local history group. The pace of change and development in industry is unceasing – this means that the task of industrial documentation is always a pressing matter. In view of this challenge, we are keen to offer you inspiration and to provide you with sound advice in this area. With this in mind, we very much hope that this book can be of some help in your work.
The guidelines have been produced to provide practical conservation advice to those owning and operating industrial and transport collections and are intended to be a resource for heritage organisations of all sizes from the largest museum to the smallest volunteer group or individual.
The guidelines cover stationary engines, industrial machinery, road vehicles, aircraft, railway vehicles, ships, boats and other working items and update standards first published by the former Museums & Galleries Commission in 1994 that have been used widely by specialists and non-specialists but have been out of print for some time.
David Hallam’s blog on engineering and industrial heritage conservation
Before his untimely death in 2019 David Hallam posted some blog entries on conservation grade detergents, inhibitors and lubricants, some information on conservation a vintage aluminium bodied car, and links to an amazing database of historic metal types, alloys and treatments with approximate dates for their development and entry into commercial production. This is a fantastic resource for working out what you are seeing in a metal object, and therefore how you might conserve it.
