FOREWORD

Jørgen Nordqvist

Director, Conservation Department
National Museum of Denmark

The destructive actions of light, inappropriate temperatures and humidity are well recognised. However, in recent years we have become more and more aware of the unwanted, and often unexpected, effect of indoor air pollution on our collections. We have given this new area of research a high priority, and therefore are happy that the Indoor Air Pollution Working Group chose the National Museum of Denmark for their annual meeting in 2001. By providing such a framework for the meeting, it is our hope that the level of importance for this subject will increase, here and elsewhere.

Many interesting papers were given during the two-day meeting, and many important subjects were discussed. Almost of equal importance were the breaks between sessions where contacts were being made and visiting cards exchanged. One outcome of the meeting is that this volume of abstracts, together with last years, set yet another stone in the foundation of the Indoor Air Pollution Working Group as a serious party of the museum world's preventive conservation forum.

I thank the coordinators of the working group for an interesting and important meeting.