Month: August 2015

Job Posting: Conservator, USS Monitor – The Mariners' Museum and Park (Newport News, VA)

Position Information
Title: Conservator, USS Monitor
Supervisor: Director, USS Monitor Center
Purpose: 

The conservator will undertake the direct treatment and preventive conservation care of objects recovered for the wreck of the USS Monitor in consultation with the Senior Conservator and Director, USS Monitor Center. This individual will work closely with conservation staff and other museum personnel to conserve artifacts and to prepare them for exhibition and/or long-term storage.

Duties:

  • Conduct examination, documentation, and artifact treatment within the Monitor collection following established conservation procedures, methodologies, and ethics.
  • When necessary, based on the conservation needs of an artifact, develop new conservation techniques and procedures in consultation with the Senior Conservator and/or Director, USS Monitor Center.
  • Maintain detailed before, during, and after treatment records including both written and photographic documentation.
  • Support preventative conservation methodology, initiate requests, implement solutions under established conservation guidelines, and make recommendations for resolving difficult or unusual problems.
  • Construct storage support systems for artifacts with special needs directly; otherwise provide instruction/oversight to the Monitor Conservation Technician.
  • Consult/work directly with the Senior Conservator, Director, USS Monitor Center, and Exhibit Design in the preparation of mounts/installation of artifacts within the museum’s galleries; this includes providing the requirements for lighting and environmental conditions. Also, provide recommendations on the ability for objects to travel outside the museum based on their condition post-treatment.
  • Assist in the maintenance/operation of laboratory equipment and facility, and participate in the ordering of supplies and additional equipment as required.
  • Promote the importance of conservation within the museum and in an outreach capacity whenever possible.
  • Perform other duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:

  • Working knowledge of acceptable practices for conservation and maintenance of objects.
  • Working knowledge of the archaeological method and practices.
  • Continued professional development in the conservation field.
  • Familiarity with a wide variety of materials including metals and organics required; experience with objects from a marine environment.
  • Working knowledge of analytical equipment and methods, not limited to but including FT-IR, SEM, XRF, digital radiography, optical microscopy, chloride analysis, metals sample preparation, and film/digital photography.
  • Working knowledge of metal fabrication and welding preferred.
  • Working knowledge of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.
  • Organizational skills necessary for planning/organizing of professional seminars, lectures, workshops, and publications.
  • Development of educational materials/activities for public outreach.
  • Attention to detail and accuracy.
  • Familiarity with accepted practices for achieving and insuring safety in the laboratory.

Education, Licensure, Certifications:
A Master’s degree (or equivalent) in conservation or related field is required.
Conditions of Employment:

A minimum of four years conservation experience is required, including work with marine archaeological materials.

Interested candidates must apply at www.marinersmuseum.org/employment

Job Posting: Third and fourth positions in Navy Conservation Branch – Naval History and Heritage Command (Richmond, VA)

The Collection Management Division of the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) is advertising vacancies in its new four-person Conservation Branch.  The third and final announcement can be found at
https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/414369800
The closing date of the announcement is September 4, 2015.  Note that this announcement is for two positions at the GS-11 level.
NHHC, headquartered at the Washington Navy Yard, is responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage.  NHHC activities include the Navy art and artifact collections, underwater archeology, Navy histories, the Navy Department Library, the Navy Operational Archives, nine museums, USS Constitution’s repair facility and the historic ship Nautilus.
In the past year, NHHC has consolidated its historic artifact collection into a single Collection Management Facility at the Defense Supply Center, Richmond VA, and has brought on staff to manage the collection there.  This summer we are establishing a four-person Conservation Branch at the Richmond facility to undertake conservation of selected artifacts from across the NHHC enterprise, conduct site visits to Navy museums around the country, and provide care guidelines for artifacts on Navy installations but not in NHHC’s custody – for example, outdoor ordnance displays.  We are in the early stages of fitting out a laboratory for the branch’s use.
The branch will be staffed by a GS-1015-13 Branch Head (announcement already closed), a GS-1015-12 Lead Conservator (also already closed), and two GS-1015-11 Conservators (this announcement).  All applicants should understand that this is a new operation, with all of the opportunities and uncertainties that implies.
To view photos of some of the historic naval artifacts in the NHHC collection, please visit some of the command’s Flickr page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/navalhistory/sets/.   For more information on NHHC, visit www.history.navy.mil or its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/navalhistory.
 

Tips for Writing and Submitting Your AIC Abstract

It’s AIC abstract season! If you’re thinking about submitting for the 2016 meeting and are struggling with your abstract, here are a few unsolicited tips. These are based on reviewing a lot of abstracts in recent years, as I’ve served as a chair and co-chair for conference sessions at our annual meeting.
1) Structure the abstract in a logical way.

  • The first sentence should be a mini-abstract, an introductory statement that sums up the content of the paper. This paper will describe a newly-developed, sustainable protocol for mitigating vampire bat damage to the painted grottoes beneath Dracula’s castle. 
  • Continue with a brief description of the project, including its context and goals.
  • Finish by summarizing what your paper will cover, e.g. research results, two case studies, the protocol you developed, etc.

2) Write the abstract well.

  • Use active, descriptive language and clear syntax.
  • Edit and proofread! This important step is best done by others. I recommend two to three readers: someone who knows the project well (did you leave anything out?), someone who is not familiar with the project (does your abstract make sense?), and someone who is a good copy editor (are there errors of grammar, punctuation, or syntax?).
  • Finally, give your paper a good title. A cute title can be fun, but will work against you if it’s difficult to understand. Your title should give the reader (and potential audience members) a clear idea of what the paper contains. “A New Protocol for Mitigating Vampire Bat Damage” is better than “Vampire Bats Suck.” If you love your funny title, add clarity by following it with a colon and a clause that explains it.

3) Follow the instructions in the “Call for Papers.”

  • If the call identifies specific themes, explicitly demonstrate how your work relates to them.
  • Stick to the word limit.
  • Follow the submission instructions.

4) Choose your submission order carefully and submit on time. AIC allows authors to submit to three sessions, ranked in order of priority. If you authored the vampire bat paper, you might submit to the General Session, ASG, Collections Care, PSG, or Sustainability. You want to be strategic in your session choices.

  • Your first choice should be the group that will benefit the most from learning about your work. Even if this is a smaller or more specialized group, these are the people who need and want to hear your talk, and this is the session that will be most likely to accept the paper.
  • Only submit to the General Session first if your project truly fits that call for papers.
  • On-time submission gives you an advantage, because committees begin reading and building programs as soon as the deadline hits.

A few words about the review process: Submission strategy matters because abstracts are reviewed in order of the author’s session choices. If you select ASG as the first choice for presentation of your Dracula grottoes paper, the ASG program committee will read your abstract in the first round of review. If ASG rejects it in the first round, it will be sent to your second choice session for consideration. Your second choice session cannot consider it until the first one releases it.
The General Session receives the most abstracts by far. Consequently, review takes longer for this committee. If your abstract is submitted with the General Session as a first choice, be aware that it might not be released until after other session programs are already full. Although your abstract will be considered by each session committee in turn, the reality is that once a full complement of talks has been chosen for a session, it’s difficult to add and subtract papers. This is why I recommend the General Session as a first choice ONLY if your project truly fits that call for papers.
Good luck!

AIC 2016 Call for Papers: Sustainability

AIC’s Sustainability Committee Session at the joint AIC and CAC-ACCR Annual Meeting
Montreal, Quebec
May 13-17, 2016
The Sustainability Committee of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) invites submissions for its session at the 44th AIC Annual Meeting, held jointly with the 42nd Annual Canadian Association for Conservation (CAC-ACCR) Conference, in Montreal, Canada from May 13-17, 2016.
The theme for the meeting is “Preparing for Disasters and Confronting the Unexpected in Conservation”.
Abstracts on the general topic of sustainability in conservation practice are welcome, as well as submissions related to the meeting’s theme of disaster preparedness, recovery, and unexpected challenges faced when approaching the conservation of cultural property from a sustainable perspective. The theme of the annual meeting is particularly relevant when considering the relationship between sustainable practices and climate change- induced environmental challenges. Submissions that inspire lively discussion are encouraged.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is Monday, September 14, 2015
Please submit abstracts online at: https://aic.secure-platform.com/a/
Please see the full submission guidelines at: http://www.conservation-us.org/annual-meeting/submit-an-abstract#.VbjIi_lViko

“The Japanese are different from you and me”

In his beautifully illustrated essay, “History Has No Place”, published in the September 23, 2015 issue of T Magazine (The New York Times’ occasional style supplement), Pico Iyer mourns the forthcoming destruction of several major monuments of Japanese Modernist architecture while acknowledging that because Japan has a culture based on impermanence, the Japanese are less attached to things than to values and do not feel the need to preserve them. (He says, “the Japanese are different from you and me”.) Since this is the case, do American and European conservators have the right to promote their value system worldwide through international conservation organizations?

Job Posting: Conservator – The Natural History Museum (London, UK)

Post: Conservator
Salary: £24,018 per annum plus benefits
Contract: Permanent
Closing date: 9am on Wednesday 26 August 2015
Interview date: w/c Monday 21 September 2015
The Natural History Museum is one of the world’s leading museums, internationally recognised for its dual role as a centre of excellence in scientific research and as a leader in the presentation of natural history through exhibitions, public programmes, publications and the web. 
The Conservation Centre in our Core Research Laboratories department is looking to recruit a preventive Conservator to assist the Senior Conservator with the implementation of preventive conservation strategies for all NHM sites and collections.  The successful candidate will be monitoring environments and therefore maintenance of monitoring systems will be a key part of this role.  You will also be expected to support the NHM public engagement program by assisting with all exhibitions related preventive conservation activities.
To be successful, you will have a degree in Conservation or a related science degree with demonstrable collection monitoring experience and understanding, with an ability to interpret data.  You will have a keen interest in monitoring systems and software with a willingness to learn how to problem solve issues.  You are comfortable with conservation cleaning techniques applicable to Natural History Specimens and have some knowledge of Museum database systems. 
To apply for this role, please go to the Natural History Museums website to apply online at:  http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/jobs-volunteering-internships/index.html

Job Posting: Conservation Supervisor of In-House Paper Collections – Parliament of the Republic of South Africa (South Africa)

INTERNAL/ EXTERNAL ADVERTISEMENT
KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION SERVICES DIVISION (KIS)
DOCUMENTATION SECTION: SUPERVISOR: CONSERVATION
Remuneration Package: R 608 457per annum
The successful candidate will be responsible for the Conservation of all in-house paper collections.
Key Performance Areas Include:

  • In-house conservation or preservation practice
  • Monitoring of work conditions
  • Conservation Logistics
  • Exhibition Assistance
  • Staff supervision
  • Advice and Advocacy

Requirements:

  • Grade 12 or NQF Level 4 with a Relevant Degree / Diploma (Fine Art / Heritage Studies)
  • Experience: 5 years relevant experience
  • Skills Requirements:
    • Sound written and oral communication skills
    • Interpersonal skills
    • Ability to work under pressure
    • Sound organizational and administrative skills
    • Ability to organize
    • Visual identification ability
    • Sound color perception
    • Aesthetic judgement
    • Analytical Approach
    • Computer Literacy

Ref: LC/ 1892 /2014
Remuneration comprises a cost-to-company package, which incorporates all the large-company benefits.
Forward your covering letter and CV containing full personal and career details, certified copies of qualifications, ID and 3 contactable referees to: Manager: Staffing and Talent Management via e-mail to: recruitment@parliament.gov.za clearly reflecting the reference number and name of the position you are applying for in all communication. Candidates, who do not submit supporting documentation, as requested, will not be considered for this position.

RFP: Conservation Treatment Waseca War Memorial (Waseca, Minnesota)

Project: Waseca County Minnesota
Conservation Treatment, War Memorial
Waseca County Courthouse
Project Director: Brian Tomford
Building & Grounds Director
Waseca County Waseca, MN 307 State St. N 56093
Office (1-507-835-0629)
Cell      (1-507-521-1112)
Fax      (1-507-835-0633)
brian.tomford@co.waseca.mn.us
RFP Closing date: 09/11/2015
Waseca County is seeking proposals for a qualified conservator to repair and restore the 1941 Spanish American and WWI Memorial and the Civil War Cannon.
Background Information:
In 2008, a conservation assessment of the Waseca War Memorial assemblage, Waseca, MN, located on the corner of the front lawn of the Waseca County Courthouse was completed. In 2014 the Memorial and Cannon were assessed again. The memorial assemblage consists of a cast bronze plaque attached to a monolithic concrete base, an adjacent flagpole, and a cast iron GAR cannon with cannon balls.
See Attached description and Conservation Assessment Plan.         
The selected Conservator must meet the Secretary of the Interiors Standards for Rehabilitation and conform to the Code of Ethics of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
Must have a minimum of 10 years’ experience in the conservation, repair and restoration of outdoor historic monuments, bronze and iron works.
Included in the Proposal:
Proposed Conservation treatment for the Memorial, Cannon and Flag Pole, including materials, process and timeline for each procedure.
A detailed budget breakdown of materials, services and labor.
A timeline for the project, an estimated beginning and end date.
A minimum of 5 previous projects with photographs of comparable scope, methods and cost.
Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 177.41 to 177.44 and corresponding Rules 5200.1000 to 5200.1120, this work is subject to the prevailing wages as established by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Specifically, all contractors and subcontractors must pay all laborers and mechanics the established prevailing wage for work performed under this agreement. Failure to comply with the aforementioned may result in civil or criminal penalties.
Submission of Proposal:
(1)  Printed copy sent by mail by 4:00 pm on 09/11/2015
All submissions must be received by the RFP closing date. Incomplete submissions and submissions received after the closing date will not be accepted.
Sealed proposals will be opened on 09/16/2015
Additional Information: 

 

Job Posting: Research Conservator – University of Glasgow (Glasgow, UK)

This post forms part of the project: Situating Pacific Barkcloth Production in Time and Place, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, working with Principal Investigator Frances Lennard, and collaborators at the Smithsonian Institution and Kew Gardens. The post requires expert theoretical and practical knowledge in the conservation of barkcloth, textiles or other organic materials. The successful candidate will also be expected to contribute to the formulation and submission of research publications as well as help to successfully deliver this project as opportunities allow.
The post is for two years, full-time, from 1 January 2016.
The post-holder will be based in the Centre for Textile Conservation at the University of Glasgow, but will spend one month at the beginning of the project working at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.
The posting closes on September 20, 2015.

CENIM-CSIC Research Group seeks to survey Professionals

We are a research group from the CENIM-CSIC and we are carrying out a study about the methods of cleaning and protection of historical lead.
As part of this study, we want to know the methods more applied by professionals and their personal experience about them.
The survey should take 10-15 minutes and it is available in the next link.  Please feel free to pass it on.
<URL:http://goo.gl/forms/80sJsl3Nx9>
If you are interested in the results, please leave your email in the section of contact details.  If you want more information, please feel free to contact me at t.palomar@csic.es.  Thank you in advance for your collaboration.
Dr. Teresa Palomar Sanz
Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Metalalurgicas (CENIM) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientaficas (CSIC)