We learned today of the imminent demise of CoOL: Conservation OnLine. CoOL is a resource on conservation and preservation issues that has been hosted by Stanford University for many, many years. Want to know what a stone consolidant does? Go check CoOL. (I still don’t know, I never went and looked it up.) Want to know how to take care of certain types of problem papers or inks? Go check CoOL. For those of us who prefer not to memorize those pieces of knowledge that we only need once every 10 years or so, CoOL has been a phenomenal resource. It was one of the first stops when researching paper conservation issues for many archivists.
But finances don’t always allow for the continuation of a project like this and so Stanford cannot support it any longer. We’re hoping that maybe somebody can pick it up, but who knows? At any rate, a tip of the hat to all those conservators who shared their knowledge with us freely via CoOL: thank you.