Evolution of the literature on preventive conservation: A 1988 and 2020 bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Preventive conservation is a combination of protective measures used in order to reduce the rate of deterioration in movable and immovable cultural values, safeguard the stability of materials and decrease the impact factors causing deterioration. Bibliometrics provides statistical and holistic data of scientifc literature in a specifc working area. This study aims to present data of a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the preventive conservation. Data related to more than 100 documents was collected from the Web of Science Core Collection [WoS] and SCOPUS. This study consists of bibliometric analysis of articles on preventive conservation which are indexed in SCOPUS, within a period between 1988 and 2020. This study uses a bibliometric analysis tool called VOSviewer. The analysis comprehends 105 publications written by 159 authors from 30 countries. Regarding the publication numbers about ‘Preventive conservationd between 1988 and 2020, Spain produced 24.76% of the worldds publications on ‘Preventive conservationd, which is the frst country with the highest number of publications and followed by Italy, Belgium, United Kingdom and United States. The countries that contribute the most are located in Europe. The sources with the most contributions to the preventive conservation literature were Studies in Conservation, Journal of Cultural Heritage, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Ge Conservacion and Iop Conference Series Materials Science and Engineering. Universitat Politecnica de Valencia in Spain was the productive institutions in the preventive conservation literature between 1988 and 2020 with 7 documents. It is suggested that preventive conservation studies should be supported in the underdeveloped and developing countries. Cultural heritage studies should include preventive conservation studies; and scholars should be encouraged to apply preventive conservation.