[en] Promotional activities were developed for applications of the Romanian Multipurpose Irradiation Facility in various fields. Among these, the conservation of cultural heritage by irradiation is one of the targets taken into consideration from the design stage. A dedicated laboratory is part of the facility. The preparations for cultural heritage conservation already started. They included acquiring of theoretical and practical experience in this field and many contacts were done with museum and archive specialists in restoration and conservation. Being a quasi new borderline between the humanistic and technical areas, the conservation of cultural heritage needs pluri-disciplinary synthesis. Our work, mainly bibliographical, covers this complex picture focusing on conservation from different points of view: sources of degradation, technical conservation alternatives with pros and contras, cost/benefit and other aspects that must be taken into account when a conservation procedure is chosen. The paper aim is to assemble the abilities of those implicated in execution and decision. - The conservator perspective is the most important one. He has the privilege and responsibility in choosing the disinfestation procedure. His perspective is based on the knowledge of the material structure, of the specific way of material deterioration and of the biology of the aggressors. - The conservation procedures must have in view the protection of the persons that use the treated objects (museum custodian, archivist, archive researcher, visitor), i.e., the need for an ecologically friendly technology to ensure the protection of human beings and environment. This trend imposed the abandonment of fumigation with toxic vapours (persisting in treated items and slowly being released in museum and archives) giving credits to new clean methods, like irradiation. - The perspective of the operator that applies the conservation procedure is governed by technical and financial elements. Having in mind the above landmarks, the known chemical and non-chemical treatment processes for preservation of cultural heritage are reviewed. The irradiation technologies are discussed in this frame. There are two directions of irradiation use: extermination of biological aggressors and the consolidation of degraded structures. For the irradiation disinfestation, the scientific approach is described. Limit absorbed doses with no damaging effects for various kinds of materials (wood, paper, parchment, leather, paint supports, paint colours, silk and other fabrics, mummies, synthetic polymers, cellulose) are mentioned. These doses are compared with the lethal doses for various aggressors: insects, moulds, fungi, actinomycetes, bacteria. The paper, as a whole, is at the same time a synthesis useful for museum and archive conservationists as well as a promotional booklet for IRASM. (author)