Haptic Characteristics of Document Conservation Tasks

Conservation of historic documents is often necessary to preserve their cultural value for future generations. An important component of the skill of document conservation is delicate hands-on manipulations. As with medical procedural training, there is a great need for better ways to train document conservators in these skills. This paper reports initial measurements of forces and torques at the interaction point between tools and mocked up documents. Five conservators used their preferred tools (such as scalpel, needle, brush, and microspatula) to remove material adhered to the samples. We analyzed video and 100 Hz force and torque recordings in the time and frequency domain to gain understanding of the nature of these tasks. The results can inform design of training simulators for document conservation skills.