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About The Met/ Conservation and Scientific Research/ Photograph Conservation/ Facilities and Equipment
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Facilities and Equipment

The Photograph Conservation Department cares for the Museum's photographic holdings, undertakes technical research, disseminates information, and trains future conservators to advance the field of photograph conservation. Our facilities include conservation treatment and examination spaces; a digital documentation set-up; a darkroom equipped to recreate historic processes, enabling conservators and students to gain a detailed technical under­standing of older works in the collection; office spaces; a seminar room with a technical library; and an extensive Study Collection.

An overhead view of a someone typing on a laptop at a large wooden table surrounded by a multi-color grid mat and various electronic devices.

Our analytical equipment includes a spectrophotometer, microfading tester; gloss meter; digital micrometer; a standardized raking-light digital microscope or "texturescope"; a Zeiss Axiocam imaging microscope; binocular microscopes; a multispectral imaging setup with full-spectrum visible, UV, and IR illumination; and Elsec, Onset, PEM2, and Vaisala climate monitoring devices.

Additional methods of analysis such as X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF), Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR/ATR-FTIR), and Raman Spectroscopy, among others, are carried out in collaboration with the Department of Scientific Research. Visit their equipment page for more information about scientific equipment available in the Museum.

The Department includes a newly-established time-based media conservation lab, with workspace and equipment needed for examination and treatment of durational artworks that employ film, video, audio, slides, computer software, and other technologies.