September 3rd, 2000

IAQ2000 (Indoor Air Quality 2000) was held at Oxford Brookes University, UK, July 10th-12th 2000. It is the third meeting in the series of meetings that started in Glasgow (Strathclyde University) in 1998 (Indoor Air Pollution: detection and mitigation of carbonyls), continued in Amsterdam (Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage) in 1999 (Indoor Air Pollution: detection and prevention). These meetings have been organised by The Indoor Air Pollution Working Group (IAP) which was itself initiated by colleagues from Strathclyde University, The Getty Conservation Institute, The Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, The Canadian Conservation Institute, and Oxford Brookes University.

This year's two day meeting focussed on three issues:

1. The basis and need for air quality standards in the museum world
2. The function of museum cases and the implications of this function for air quality measurements in cases
3. The funding of museum air quality research

The abstracts and contributions that follow show what can happen when a group of people start talking to each other. This meeting was not sponsored, nor was it subsidised. The aims of the meeting were to discuss the issues above and then disseminate the results of those discussions. Three different research clusters comprised of attendees from different international backgrounds are now operational - they are listed below (with their convenors). The aims of these groups are to initiate research proposals in these key areas:

1. Working Group on museum cases (Velson Horie)
2. Database of "change" in artefacts in Museum and Museum case environments (David Thickett)
3. Interlaboratory Comparison (Monika Fjaested)

In addition to these groups, a statement is being developed amongst particularly the UK contingent on the funding of Museum Air Quality studies, probably in conjunction with a broader statement from the UKIC.

Finally, any meeting like this can only be facilitated, it is the participants who make or break it. About 70 people spent 2-3 days in Oxford discussing a closely focussed set of issues. Thanks are due to all of these people, especially our distinguished speakers from literally all over the globe who gave freely of their time and expertise, and to Oxford Brookes University who provided the facilities for this meeting. Finally, the meeting would not have run at all had it not been for the efforts of our conference administrator, Tracy Dickinson, whom I believe knows more about the nuts and bolts of exactly who runs what, how and when in this institution than many who have been here for years.

Simon Watts,
Oxford Brookes University.