Reports of the Museums and Research Institutes 



37 



and network building among organizations serving Latino 

 communities. 



The Latino Initiatives Fund, administered by the center, 

 contributed to more than 45 projects within the Smithson- 

 ian. Among them were "Arriba! The History of Aviation in 

 Latin America" at the National Air and Space Museum; a 

 photography exhibition on Los Angeles Latino communities, 

 "El Nuevo Mundo/The New World," at the Cooper-Hewitt, 

 National Design Museum; and studies of Latino musicians 

 and writers, business entrepreneurs, and religious image 

 carvers (santeros) ar the National Museum of American His- 

 tory. The National Museum of American History, National 

 Museum of Natural History, National Portrait Gallery, and 

 National Zoo received funds to develop educational pro- 

 grams for Latino youth and communities. Several cultural 

 events by Latino artists, educators, and performers were part 

 of the outreach. 



The Latino music tradition is a major concern of the cen- 

 ter and the core of a long-term initiative including exhibits, 

 performances, and research. In 1999, the center and The 

 Smithsonian Associates cosponsored "Miisica de las Ameri- 

 cas," an acclaimed series of performances and scholarly panels 

 exploring the influence of Latin music on the musical and 

 cultural hetitage of the United States. 



With the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition 

 Service, the center produced the widely acclaimed exhibition 

 "Americanos: Latino Life in the United States," which will 

 travel through the United States until 2003. In partnership 

 wirh Time Warner, an exhibition sponsor, the center has de- 

 veloped a visitor brochure and a related poster exhibit for 

 schools. 



Smithsonian Center for Materials 

 Research and Education 



Lambertus van Zelst, Director 



The Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Educa- 

 tion (SCMRE) is the Smithsonian's specialized facility 

 dedicated to research and training in the area of conserva- 

 tion, analysis, and technical study of museum collections and 

 related materials. Conservation and preservation research 

 seeks to increase our understanding of the mechanisms that 

 affect the preservarion of materials in museum collections, in 

 order to formulate improved exhibit, storage, and orher use 

 conditions, as well as to develop, test, and improve treat- 

 ment technology. In collections-based research, objecrs from 

 museum collections and related materials are studied to in- 

 crease rheir contextual information value and address 

 questions in archaeology, arr history, etc. Several of these re- 

 search programs are conducted in collaboration with othet 

 institutions, notably the National Institute for Standards 

 and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, and the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington. 



The international collaborative research program on the 

 applications of these techniques in Latin American archaeol- 



ogy, coordinated by SCMRE and sponsored by the interna- 

 tional Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), concluded its second 

 year with a successful workshop in Cuzco (Peru). SCMRE 

 also cosponsored the Conference on Modern Trends in Acti- 

 vation Analysis hosted by the National Institute for 

 Standards and Technology. 



Research continued on historic and prehisroric technolo- 

 gies, on the preservation of natural history collections and 

 the potential to recover molecular information from such 

 collecrions, and on the mechanical and chemical properties 

 of a wide variery of materials in museum collections and 

 their implications on the preservation of objects in such col- 

 lections. 



This year, SCMRE and Santa Clara University in Santa 

 Clata, California, agreed ro develop joint programs in re- 

 search, education, and outteach focused on the history of the 

 California missions and aiming specifically ar a Hispanic 

 American audience. Initial research will examine production 

 and distribution of ceramics at the California missions, and 

 is intended to result in a variety of educational offerings, in- 

 cluding exhibit programs and curriculum units for secondary 

 schools. 



SCMRE continued a series of education and outreach ac- 

 tivities based on technical information obrained from studies 

 of santos, objects of veneration art specific to the Hispanic 

 American cultural traditions. This year the laboratory organ- 

 ized the exhibit "A Closer Look at Santos/Una Mirada mas 

 Profunda a los Santos, " which had its first showing at the de 

 Saisset Museum in Santa Clara, California. This bilingual ex- 

 hibir, centered around four santos from the de Saisset 

 Museum and the National Museum of American History, fo- 

 cused on aspects of materials and techniques and the 

 scientific methodologies employed in the technical studies. 



Continuing the offerings of its Research Libtaries and 

 Archives Conservation Training (RELACT) program, 

 SCMRE this year organized, hosted, and conducted, in col- 

 laboration with the International Cenrre for the Study of the 

 Conservation and the Restoration of Cultural Property (IC- 

 CROM), an intergovernmental organization based in Rome, 

 Italy, a six-week international course on Preservarion Princi- 

 ples for Paper-based Collections. This course, attended by 1 1 

 professionals from archives in countries in Africa, Asia, Aus- 

 tralia, and Europe, integrated technical and managerial 

 issues involved in the preservation and use of archival collec- 

 tions. An innovative, Web-based curriculum designed for 

 this course will remain available and accessible for profes- 

 sionals worldwide, and serve in future offerings of similar 

 courses in various regions in the western hemisphere. 



SCMRE's Archaeological Conservarion Training Program 

 continued to serve an audience of conservarion professionals, 

 archaeologists and museum collection care staff. A number 

 of conservators and conservarion students received practical 

 training experiences at archaeological sites in Harappa (Pak- 

 isran), Copan (Honduras), and Aguateca (Guatemala). At the 

 same time, archaeologists and archaeology students active in 

 field schools at these sites, as well as local professionals in 

 the cultural sector, received training in conservation and 

 preservation principles for archaeological materials during 



