Considers the rate of introduction of new instrumentation to routine and research application in conservation, and examines factors which affect that rate. References in literature in a general conservation practice and those reflecting more technical archeological and provenance research are compared to those in an abstract journal which represents the diffusion of information from the primary technical literature to the field of conservation. Various problems incurred with current instrumentation trends are alluded to. The most promising new analytical instrumentation techniques likely to be accepted by the conservation field are methods based on computer assisted image enhancement rather than more sensitive analytical equipment. See AATA 19-956.