Strategies for the deployment of microclimate sensors in spaces housing collections

Abstract

The study of the microclimate is pivotal for the protection and conservation of cultural heritage. This paper describes specific procedures aimed at the deployment of microclimate sensors in spaces housing collections (e.g., museums) under different scenarios. The decision making involves a multidisciplinary discussion among museum manager, conservator and conservation scientist and implies five steps. Since the sensor’s deployment depends on the number of available sensors, we have identified two possible circumstances: (a) artwork-related deployment (i.e., there are as many sensors as the number of artworks) and (b) artwork-envelope-related deployment (i.e., the number of available sensors is less than the number of artworks). The former circumstance is advisable when the artwork is often moved from a museum to another one. The latter circumstance is usually the case of permanent collections, and, according to the Museum Scenario (MS), the related procedures can be further subdivided into basic (MSI and MSII) and advanced (MSIII and MSIV). Advanced procedures are preferable over basic procedures when several time series of microclimate data have been collected for at least one calendar year in several sampling points. All these procedures make it possible to design where to deploy sensors both in the case of an initial deployment and of optimisation of already installed sensors.