Welcome to the Glass Age

158 were developed in laboratories specifically created for the conservation and study of the cultural heritage preserved by museums, such as the C2RMF - Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France , whose facilities are located at the Musée du Louvre , Paris (F). Museum’s libraries and archives are invaluable resources for making research on glass and glassmaking accessible to scholars and the public. Keeping a record of the museum’s activities and gathering specialized collections of books and documents, they strongly support the wider research community, an important example being the Juliette K. and Leonard S. Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass, the world’s leading institution on the subject. A valuable collection of glass auction and commercial catalogues, the oldest dating from 1744, is hosted by the library of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (F). Glass museums and the cultural landscape Several glass museums have been created in regions or even towns traditionally devoted to glass production as for example the Museo del Vetro in Murano, Venice (I) (Figure 10.8) or The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning (US) (Figure 10.9). The complex of buildings created in the second half of the 18th century to host the Real Fábrica de Cristales de La Granja at the Real Sitio de San Ildefonso (Segovia, ES) is today the home of the Fundación Centro Nacional del Vidrio (FCNV), incorporating the Museo Tecnológico del Vidrio . In areas where glass manufacture has ended, museums can occupy a very special place. The decline of the glass industry in regions with a strong tradition of glass work has contributed to the conversion of industrial history into museum exhibits and community-based museography. The musealization of Figure 10.7. Conservators Stephen Koob and Astrid van Giffen at The Corning Museum of Glass’s conservation laboratory. Source: Courtesy of The Corning Museum of Glass , Corning, NY. © Greg Hodges.