Development of new multispectral imaging and image-change analysis systems allows high-resolution, full-area, non-destructive and zero-contact monitoring (without the necessity of removing works framed under glass or plastic sheets from their frames) of photographs, paintings, fabrics, documents, books, and other works of artistic and historic importance with very large data sets consisting of ten thousand or more discrete colorimetric data points for the short-term and long-term monitoring of full-tonal-scale colorimetric changes (including in the UV and IR regions) in a fully-time-integrated fashion that might take place in the full image area and in the support material (recto and verso) over time. Irregularities in image deterioration and/or staining brought about by localized variations with the materials and "processing" employed in the creation of the work, the inevitably non-uniform contact with mounting, framing, and storage materials over time, and the effects of exposure to non-uniform lighting, environmental and "micro-climate" temperature and relative humidity conditions, can be assessed and compared over long periods of time in all areas of an image – including within very small image details. This paper attempts to consider the formidable technical challenges of very-long-term monitoring in the context of the now more than 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel, and the ongoing programs to systematically multispectrally-image, monitor, and preserve the delicate parchment scrolls and scroll fragments. Strategies that might be able to accomplish such very-long-term monitoring goals are suggested.
Ken Boydston, Henry Wilhelm, John McElhone, Richard Adams, "High-Resolution Multispectral Imaging and Analysis Systems for the Very-Long-Term Monitoring of Photographs, Paintings, Fabrics, Documents, Books, and Other Works of Artistic and Historical Importance" in Proc. IS&T Archiving 2018, 2018, pp 163 - 164, https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2168-3204.2018.1.0.35