Author: Amy Brost

ECPN MEETING MINUTES

Monday, January 30, 2012

Conference Call Attendees:

Molly Gleeson (Chair)

Eliza Spaulding (Vice Chair)

Carrie Roberts (co-Professional Education and Training)

Megan Salazar-Walsh (co-Outreach Coordinator)

Amy Brost (Communications Officer)

Stephanie Lussier (Board Liaison)

Ryan Winfield (AIC Staff)

Ruth Seyler (AIC Staff)

Gwen Manthey

Robin O’Hern (CSCP)

Rebecca Rushfield (ETC)

Stephanie Porto (CAC-ECC)

Amber Harwood (CAC-ECC liaison)

Abigail Charnov (Architectural Conservators)

Genevieve Bieniosek (E&T Committee)

Lee Ann Barnes Gordon (OSG liaison)

 

1. Roll Call – Eliza Spaulding took roll.

 

2. Minutes Approval (Molly) – December meeting minutes were approved.

 

3. Welcome Abby Aldrich, our new Co-Chair of Professional Education and Training (Molly) – Replacing Amber Kerr-Allison, will serve until the 2013 AIC annual meeting.

 

4. AIC 2012 Meeting

a. ECPN Informational Meeting (Molly) – Informational meeting, open to all attendees, Tue. May 8 from 5-6 pm.  Same day as workshops and tours.  Eliza and Molly will organize it and print the agenda.  Hoping committee members, board and staff liaisons will all be there.  Can begin discussing how to promote these events.  Tue. May 8 following the meeting, 6 pm, the Happy Hour will begin.

 

b. ECPN Happy Hour (Megan) – Bar in the Hyatt, hoping for about 30-35 people.  They can accommodate up to 50 people.  There is a rooftop bar/nightclub in a neighboring hotel, with a Tue. night movie event, so it was not a good fit.  Not as conducive to conversations.  Other nearby venues were also nightclubs.  Bar in the Hyatt was the best choice.  May also get more people being located in the conference hotel.  Ruth will help, and liaise with the hotel so they are aware that this event is part of the AIC Annual Meeting.  As point person, Ruth can also help to determine the best location, because she will be visiting the venue before the meeting.  Happy Hour and time can be promoted in advance, even if venue is not final.

 

c. Portfolio Session (Carrie) – Invitation to program leaders went out last Friday.  One student already responded.  Carrie is informing interested students of the times for the session, and after all responses gathered, will discuss how to follow up.  Thursday break, 10 a.m., and lunch in Exhibit Hall from noon to 1 p.m., and then a break at 4 p.m.  The portfolio sessions will be during the Thursday breaks.  This also overlaps with the poster session at 4 p.m. and pulls traffic out of the Exhibit Hall, which is Ruth’s concern.  In the future, overlapping with just one break would be better.  At least, do not have the portfolio session over the lunch.

 

d. ECPN Poster (Carrie) – Over the past month, the poster working group has been brainstorming and gathering volunteer contributions.  There have been posts to the blog, Facebook, and CIPP, to solicit input for case studies.  Mid-February date to get back to people.  Working group will discuss follow-up in the coming week or two.  Want to have a broad range of outreach examples for the poster.

 

e. Promotion of AIC Events (Molly and Ruth) – Promote after early rate closes for registration.  The website is still in transition, so will place this content into the new website.  ECPN could start promoting events on Facebook and the blog.  Content could be written and sent to Ruth and Ryan for promotional purposes.  Amy, Anisha, and Megan can assist.

 

5. Mentorship Program Update (Ryan and Eliza) – Eliza, Ryan, Stephanie, and Molly discussed the timeline on a conference call.  Ryan has reached out to current applicants, and many still interested in being matched.  Ryan sent a follow-up survey to identify the specific projects the mentors and mentees are interested in.  That will create more targeted goals and improved matches.  Responses still coming in.  Will review that information early next week, and make matches.  Will continue to revise the program and roll out the revised program at this year’s AIC meeting.

 

6. Regional Liaisons Update (Megan and Anisha) – Have contacted potential liaisons and many have responded with interest. About a dozen (list is on the writeboard in Basecamp).  Anisha is working on a blog post to announce new ones, and put out a call for more volunteers.  Kick-off call sometime in February.  Will do a Doodle poll to find a time that works for everyone.  Give them a platform to share ideas, think about events and how to promote them, and have more experienced liaisons share tips and experiences.  Calls will be quarterly.  Will keep encouraging them to be involved.  Would love to have people post photos, announcements, etc. on the Facebook page, to let the network know.  Promote professional development opportunities across the country, and activities of allied groups.  Molly asked that Megan and Anisha copy Ruth, Ryan, Stephanie, Molly, and others on the ECPN committee to see if they want to be involved in the Regional Liaison calls as well.

 

7. ANAGPIC 2012 (Eliza) – Eliza reached out to NYU.  It will be April 12-14.  Eliza asked Michele Marincola for a 10-minute presentation by ECPN.  Professor Marincola indicated that the program was very full already, but she would look for other windows for a presentation.  Eliza responded that a 5-minute talk would work, or an alternative could be a handout or flier to be included with the conference material.  Amy indicated that she did a flier for last year’s ANAGPIC.  Can be updated for this year.  This can be discussed on our next call.  Molly indicated that adding the events scheduled for the annual meeting would be great.  Genevieve mentioned that hearing Ryan talk about ECPN at last year’s ANAGPIC was valuable, and so was the flier. The idea of a poster was discussed but then dismissed, thinking that it wasn’t a good fit with the rest of the posters at ANAGPIC, which often focus on student research.

 

8. Student research database (Carrie) – Questionnaire was developed to get feedback on the concept, and gauge interest in and commitment to the project.  Questionnaire to seven programs.  Have gotten some critical feedback from three of the programs so far.  Need to see if remaining programs intend to answer the questionnaire, or intend to support the project.  Waiting for NYU, Buffalo, Penn, and University of Texas.  Busy time during applications, but important to gauge their interest.  Carrie asked if anyone could inquire with their program leader.  Megan will speak to Buffalo.  Rebecca can speak to Michele at NYU.  Molly will contact UPenn and UT. Carrie will provide all with a few summary questions to ask the programs.  Working group will schedule a call to discuss all feedback, after giving it a week to see if the summary questions can be answered.

 

9. Forum call survey (Amy and Ryan) – The idea is to hold quarterly Forum Calls where the wider ECPN network is invited to call in and participate in a discussion on a specific topic of interest.  The monthly calls, by contrast, are mostly focused on committee business, and despite the open call-in policy, it is rare to have new people calling in. A survey was developed to gauge interest in the idea, as well as ask the network to rate possible topics and scheduling options.  It will be sent out soon, perhaps this week, pending Ryan checking with Ruth on the e-blast schedule.  It will go to the ECPN interest list.  The email can be forwarded on to other emerging conservators.  Encourage people in the wider network to fill this out.  Would like to get feedback from membership before organizing topics.

 

10. Canadian Association for Conservation’s Emerging Conservators Committee (CAC-ECC): introductions and discussion of future collaboration (Stephanie Porto, Amber Harwood (Queens liaison and regional representative for CAC), Meaghan Monaghan (Co-Chair)) – Communicated with the program students at ANAGPIC last year with a poster and are contributing to the ECPN blog.  Want to let program students know that this group is active in Canada.  Will continue posting to the blog, and also looking for more ways to collaborate.  Perhaps have emerging conservators interview established conservators, and include the interview in the CAC Bulletin.  However, it’s only available to members.  Perhaps post them online also, as ECPN blog posts.  Amber is hoping to talk about the group at ANAGPIC, and will reach out to Eliza and NYU.  There will be a student poster session, but focused on research, so perhaps a flier or short talk, as ECPN was hoping to do.  Eliza will coordinate with Stephanie and Amber about promoting ECPN and CAC-ECC at ANAGPIC.

 

11. Committee positions turning over and extending – Communications Coordinator, Amy’s position, is turning over at the annual meeting.  She has served in the role since September of 2010.  This vacancy will be announced in the March AIC News, and March 1 on the blog and Facebook page.  Application deadline will be first week of April.  New officer would be announced at annual meeting, and the new officer’s term would begin just after that.  Eliza, Anisha, and Megan will extend to 2013.  Eliza will be Chair for a year after 2013.  This was done to bring ECPN officer terms in line with what is done on other AIC committees, which have positions that turn over at the AIC meeting.

 

12. Schedule date/time for next call – Tuesday, February 21, 1 p.m.  The call will be pushed from the usual Monday due to Presidents’ Day.  Amy cannot attend.  Eliza will take minutes.

 

13. Wiki Edit-a-Thon – Ending tomorrow.  Will discuss ECPN involvement on next call.

 

Next call: Tuesday, February 21, at 1 pm ET.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Amy Brost

 

 

ECPN MEETING MINUTES

Monday, December 19, 2011

Conference Call Attendees:

Abby Aldrich

Amy Brost (Communications)

Molly Gleeson (Chair)

Amber Kerr-Allison (outgoing Professional Education and Training)

Gwen Manthey

Rachael Perkins-Arenstein

Carrie Roberts (co-Professional Education and Training)

Megan Salazar-Walsh (co-Outreach Coordinator)

Ruth Seyler (AIC Staff)

Eliza Spaulding (Vice Chair)

Emily Williams (ETC)

Ryan Winfield (Staff Liaison)

 

Liaisons:

Amy Baker, BPG and Publications

Genevieve Bieniosek, E&T Committee

Avigail Charnov, Architectural Conservators

Amanda Holden, Textile Specialty Group

 

 

1. Minutes Approval – November 21 minutes were approved.  Amy will distribute to the AIC-emerging list, and post on the AIC blog in the ECPN category.

 

2. Introductions (Molly) – Liaisons as well as ECPN committee members are participating in today’s call.  List of all liaisons is on Basecamp.  Molly introduced newcomers to the committee.

 

3. AIC 2012 ECPN Sessions (Ruth) – ECPN informational meeting will be held again next year, the Happy Hour at the end of the conference, and the second year of the Portfolio Session.  A lot of positive feedback on that from 2011.  Next deadline January 19 – need to decide on ECPN events so there can be placeholders in the program, and an idea of date and time.  For planning purposes, Ruth is allocating meeting space based on ECPN holding all three.  Discussion on 2011 Portfolio Session: representatives from all training programs were present; attendees ranged from pre-program to museum professionals; numbers were mostly pre-program but interest across experience levels was high.  Hope to have a larger, more visible space next year.  Over 60 people attended, according to Ryan and Amber. Amber had contacts at the graduate programs from the Student Research Repository project.  She reached out to the programs, which then identified representatives to present portfolios.  Lots of career stages were represented: successful portfolios for entry to conservation graduate programs, current students, graduating students entering the field.  Would be helpful to have an on-site storage space for the portfolios where presenters could keep portfolios before and after the session.  Carrie will be organizing the Portfolio Session for 2012, working with Molly.

 

4. AIC ECPN Poster (Carrie) – Carrie thanked Amber and others for help editing the proposal, which was accepted.  Theme involves outreach using social media, illustrated with case studies and a “how-to” section on how conservators can use new media tools.  Call for ideas both through personal contacts, Facebook and the blog resulted in a number of ideas.  Carrie is organizing a poster working group, and will schedule a call on gathering content from volunteer contributors, as well as soliciting case studies from private practices or other groups not well represented yet.  May be an ‘interview’ format.  Brainstorm content for ‘how-to’ session, to determine which media tools will be most useful.  Set content deadline so there is design time for Amy and Carrie.  Anyone is welcome to contact Carrie to join the working group.  Amber thought perhaps there could be a computer near the poster with live examples, but Ruth indicated that it would be cost-prohibitive.  Any device, such as a phone with hot-spot ability, could provide a working demo, but this is in violation of the contract with the conference hotel, which requires the use of their Internet connections for all official conference programming.  Ryan suggested a call-out on the poster itself or a flier that drives attendees to a blog post containing all the applicable links.  May also be able to create a remote demo that doesn’t require an internet connection.

 

5. AIC 2012 Angels Project (Ruth) – Sites are still under consideration.  Identified one site, but scope of the work would exceed one day, with more intensive treatments needed.  Two more sites being explored.  Will have a site selected in January.  In past years, have not had any issues recruiting volunteers.  This year, will see how many volunteers the site can handle, and what type of project it will be, before seeing how many ECPN volunteers will be needed.  Every Angels Project is different, based on the needs of the individual site.

 

6. Mentorship Program (Eliza) – Review of the program is in progress.  Refining how matches are done.  ECPN to shoulder more responsibility to support AIC staff.  Letters drafted to current mentee and mentor applicants who have been on hold.  Editing nearly complete.  Ruth indicated that they would be sent out the first week in January, with responses required by perhaps the 18th.  Letter drafts are all on Basecamp under Files tab.  Ryan will get back to Eliza today.  Ryan will send them out.  Survey being developed for current applicants to see what their needs are and what they want to get out of the mentor relationship.  List on Whiteboard on Basecamep of possible mentoring projects that pairs could do together.  Will survey applicants about those activities and ask them to rate their importance.  Survey can either go out with the letters, or later on.  Ryan felt the list could be helpful for the application process also, instead of ‘why would you like to have a mentor’ – an expansion of that question.  Ryan, Eliza, Gwen, and Emily to have a call about the survey.  Use it to survey both mentor and mentee applicants, and moving forward, collect this information from all applicants.  Will discuss an overall mentorship program timeline on their call.

 

7. Regional Liaisons (Megan) – Look for regional representatives to help expand ECPN, post about local events, post to the blog and Facebook to keep the group informed, may also organize events (lab tours, portfolio reviews, social events, etc).  Drafting a letter to solicit involvement, also calling on personal contacts.  Will send out the letters the first week of January, and give 2-3 weeks for a reply.  By next call, may have the regional liaisons identified.  Quarterly Forum Calls – one of those calls could be devoted to regional liaisons to talk about their activities and what the regional conservation associations are doing.  Regional liaison ideas are on Basecamp – contact Megan and Anisha with any additional ideas.

 

8. Forum Calls (Amy and Molly) – Amy and Molly drafted a survey about the Forum Calls that is on Basecamp.  It asks basic questions about whether or not people would be interested in quarterly Forum Calls for the full membership, and asks them to rate possible topics of interest.  Ryan will add one more question about what duration of the call would work best for people: 30, 60, 90 minutes for example.  Ryan will craft one more question, and then take the draft survey from Basecamp and develop it into a Surveymonkey survey.  If he is able to send it out early in January 2012, the results can be discussed on the next call.  The topic and time for the first “Forum Call” will be informed by the survey results.

 

9. ECPN Blog (Ryan) – The ECPN blog location has changed.  It will now be integrated into the AIC WordPress blog.  Posts should be categorized as ECPN in the drop-down list.  Tags are optional.  At a later date, Ryan and Rachel will export the contents of the former ECPN blog at Blogspot, and import those posts into WordPress.  Ryan will create a post on the ECPN Blogspot that notifies visitors that the blog has moved, with a link to the AIC WordPress blog.  He will also provide a link from the new blog to the old for those who want to reference older posts, until the archives are migrated.

 

10. About the January Wiki Edit-A-Thon (Rachael) – Wiki was first populated with the catalogs developed by the various specialty groups.  Several groups without printed catalogs then joined in.  Paintings, Textiles, BPG, and PMG were first, with printed catalogs, so their Wikis have more of a traditional editorial structure than the others.  Some groups have put up an outline showing the content they would like to see developed, and then look for people to populate it.  Training is not difficult, but people interested in adding content are not interested in learning the interface.  That is where ECPN can help – many members are comfortable with the interface, but may be less confident about creating entries.  In January Edit-A-Thon, volunteers can post content that has been written and needs to be transferred to the platform.  Rebecca Rushfield (FAIC Oral History Project) has material on past conservators that could be put up.  Rachel can put volunteers in touch with the Wiki coordinator for your specialty group of interest, or you can work on exhibition standards, preventive care, or other topics that need “extra fingers.”  Working on the Wiki can be a mini-mentoring opportunity, when experienced conservators have material and could be matched to an emerging conservator who would post it, and some interaction would be part of the process.  The transferring and editing would be collaborative.  Some common discussion threads could be posted for future reference (for example CIPP thread that recurs is one about what corporate structure conservators in private practice choose – LLC, S-corp, etc).  Rachel has some threads that could be developed into Wiki content.  An emerging conservator could be matched with a more experienced conservator to do this.  ECPN will develop a list of volunteers with their area of interest and provide to Rachel so she can create some assignments.  Molly indicated that this could tie in to the mentor-mentee projects list, so going forward, the Wiki could be something that mentor-mentee pairs could do together.

 

Next call: Monday, January 16, at 1 pm ET.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Amy Brost

 

 

Last fall, I attended an exciting two-day symposium in New York City titled “Artists’ Records in the Archives.”  Presented on October 11-12, 2011 by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, the symposium highlighted something I knew little about: the presence of works of art in many archival collections.  Simply put, the dualism between art and its archival traces is no longer valid.  The goal of this conference was to start a dialogue that can address the ways in which archival concepts and practices must be updated and refined in light of this change.

Much that was discussed was relevant for conservators.  Choosing the appropriate category (library, archives, art, special collections) for a work has implications for its accessibility, preservation, resource allocation, and value for insurance purposes.  As such, transparent methods and principles for this categorization must be developed.  Archiving and preservation strategies for works created in multimedia and emerging media must also be explored. Archivists are interested in establishing best practices and guidelines for categorizing works, and establishing some objective criteria.  They are agreed that archivists must work more closely with curators and conservators over time to periodically examine the institution’s holdings to ensure that works are properly categorized and cared for.  The lesson for scholars engaged in research is that art collections, archives, and libraries do not have tidy boundaries.

Speakers included Ann Butler (Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard) who spoke about the blurring line between “art” and “archives,” and how some objects that were once considered documentation are now exhibited as art.  She went on to discuss how this presented challenges for categorizing objects.  Marvin Taylor (Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU) chose specific items from the Downtown collection (post-1975 New York) to illustrate the same problem – what is “art” and what is “document”?  Examples included street art documentation, and artists’ notes and drawings on correspondence in the archives.  Chrissie Iles (Whitney Museum of American Art) discussed how, as time passes, archival materials may migrate toward status as art objects.  She pointed out that recent art movements make definitions of art objecthood elusive.  In the absence of an object, such as in the case of performance art/time-based works, photo documentation stands in for the art event, so these kinds of documents are often collected and exhibited as art objects themselves.

Other topics covered by this symposium included how to preserve, process, manage, and make artists’ records accessible to researchers.  Digitization of archives and preservation and accessibility of born-digital materials were also explored.  There were many wonderful speakers on these topics, but in particular, Sally Brazil (The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library), Julia Feldman (MoMA), and Erin Murphy (Harvard Art Museums) all gave very exciting talks about their experiences with processing and managing artists’ records in their archives.  Ms. Brazil spoke about the Frick family archive, Ms. Feldman about the Fluxus archive, and Ms. Murphy described the processing of the Alfonso Ossorio archive.

Erin Kinhart described the massive digitization project of 118 collections in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Charles Duncan highlighted several important collections of artists’ records that have already been digitized, including the Louise Nevelson papers, papers of the Photorealists (Audrey Flack, et al), the Jack Stewart graffiti archive, Jimmy Ernst’s papers (son of Max Ernst), letters pertaining to the Armory show, etc. Megan McShea spoke about artists’ audiovisual records, which are at particular risk for irreparable damage if not conserved, due to the inherent fragility of the media.

It was interesting to hear about the many different kinds of archives, from public to private, large to small, and everything in between.  Andrew Martinez (Rhode Island School of Design) shared some examples from the RISD archive, an institutional and teaching archive that contains many original student art works, such as the student work of noted photographer Francesca Woodman. Her transcripts, application materials, artist statements, essays, and exhibition documentation can help scholars establish a timeline for her work and better understand her developing vision.  By contrast, Allison Hemler (The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation) works at an archive devoted to one artist, Felix Gonzales-Torres, and generally speaking there are no discrete art objects in collections. Owners of installation work by Gonzalez-Torres receive a Certificate of Authenticity and a guidelines sheet. Every installation is unique, thereby resisting monumentalization of the art object.

The symposium concluded with a session on the subject of born-digital archive materials and art works, and a discussion of how to ensure access to artists’ records created today with emerging technologies.  Social media and web archiving was discussed, and Dennis Moser (University of Wyoming) showed examples of the far fringe of digital arts – performance works done solely online, in virtual worlds – which perhaps illustrate best of all the particular challenges of preserving digital art.

This overview can but scratch the surface of what was discussed.  For me, I gained a new appreciation for the field of archives and preservation, and I am excited by the new directions for collaboration between archivists and conservators.

 

 

ECPN MEETING MINUTES

Monday, November 21, 2011

Conference Call Attendees:

Ryan Winfield (Staff Liaison)

Stephanie Lussier (Board liaison)

Molly Gleeson (Chair)

Eliza Spaulding (Vice Chair)

Amy Brost (Communications officer)

Anisha Gupta (co-Outreach Coordinator)

Megan Salazar-Walsh (co-Outreach Coordinator)

Carrie Roberts (co-Professional Education and Training)

Rebecca Rushfield (ETC)

Emily Williams (ETC)

LeeAnn Barnes Gordon

Amber Kerr-Allison (co-Professional Education and Training)

Gwen Manthey

 

1. Minutes Approval – October 31 minutes taken by Anisha were approved.  Amy will post to the blog. Minutes distribution protocol was discussed.  Want to follow the process used by other committees, if one exists.  BPG puts final minutes on listserv.  We also share minutes with all members.  Process will be as follows: Draft can be posted to Basecamp.  Post approved minutes to AIC-Emerging listserv and the ECPN blog.  Notify membership of minutes posted to the blog by including the link in a Facebook post.

 

2. Student research database update (Carrie and Amber) – Carrie hosted a conference call to bring everyone up to date, including discussion of the questionnaire to send out to program leaders for their input.  Proposal draft in progress.  Short- and long-term cost estimate in development.  Working with Rebecca Rushfield, Abby Aldrich (working with AATA on student abstracts), Emily Williams, in addition to ECPN committee members.  Questionnaire just sent out to program leaders as a writable PDF.  Questions on possible structure, submission procedures, support, copyright, content review, and other topics.  Outcome will inform proposal development.  Draft is on Basecamp, identical to the document that went out.  Questionnaires expected back Dec. 30 – more than half are already back.  Responses, once all are in, will be compiled and shared with the group on a future call.

 

3. Poster Proposal (Carrie) – Awaiting response.  Ready to gather case studies from the blog comments and Facebook to begin work on content as soon as we hear about approval.

 

4. IAG meeting (Molly) – Molly attended IAG meeting and notes are on Basecamp.  Some ECPN-related activities, such as next AIC meeting activities, came up.  Discussion of posters – the theme is a good one for ECPN.  New AIC website will be launched by the end of the year.  We won’t see obvious changes, but the back end will improve functionality, like adding an online member directory.  Board approved the Collections Care Network (Cathy Hawks is the point person for Eliza at present).  Forum calls were another topic that came up.

 

5. Forum calls (open discussion) – Amy and Molly to manage these.  Topics list on a Writeboard on Basecamp.  Use Forum call on quarterly basis to see what people want to see from ECPN.  Screenshare, like Rachel used for Basecamp training, might be appropriate for Forum call format.  Perhaps have a poll or survey to start.  Stephanie pointed out that going step-wise, starting with a survey on topics for Forum calls, and use the calls for further discussion.  The regional liaison group can also be a way to help set group priorities.  First call toward beginning of 2012.  Early December survey to help select topic.  Amy will develop survey in Surveymonkey or Google poll.  Anisha agreed that themed Forum calls have the potential to be very popular.  Need to schedule at a time people can participate.  Carrie liked the internship topic in particular (paid vs. unpaid).  A very strong topic.  Good one to bring in established professionals, to talk about experiences they can offer to pre-program students.  Megan said part of the poll could ask when the call should be scheduled for.  If we know generally weekends are best, we have to be sure any “guests” we invite to speak to the group can do that time also.  Molly mentioned that some topics will be more specific and targeted (post-grad vs. pre-program) – want to be sure to cover the whole spectrum.

 

6. Communications update (Amy) – Blog posts: Amy is working on a blog post about a recent conference by Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan NY, titled “Artists’ Records in the Archives.”  A pre-program student volunteered to contribute a blog post about her pre-program internship and provide an overview of the conservation activities of the Adirondack Museum.  With one more bio, the “meet the committee officers” blog post will be completed.   Amy will also begin work on a project to create an announcement, column or article for AIC News about the benefits of having student and junior members on the AIC committees.  There was some discussion about whether ECPN would prefer to advocate for more ECPN liaisons, or more student members, who may not be affiliated with ECPN.  The consensus was that the positions are different and beneficial for different reasons, so both can be encouraged.  Avoid adding to existing ECPN officer workload – use these positions to bring new people into the group.  Molly will speak to Lisa G. about this and other ECPN contributions to the AIC News, such as something about the mentoring program.

 

7. Outreach activities (Anisha and Megan) – Regional liaisons list can be started right away.  Molly has a few names to start, based on committee applicants, Stephanie has some names from the NYRAC list.  Molly will give names to Anisha and Megan, along with the region the people are in, but also encouraged that Anisha and/or Megan could get in touch with the regional conservation associations to expand the list.  Will help with organizing meet-ups and coordinating activities.  AIC website has a list of regional associations.  Molly is on the WAAC board, so she can help there.  Emerging Museum Professionals Facebook page shows a lot of activities with regional focus.  Good to look at for reference and ideas.  People on our Facebook page are looking for activities.  The Getty lab tour was a success – more like that will be possible with regional liaisons.  Bloomington, IL has a group that is particularly active.  Encourage more regional networking and activities, and keep a connection to the whole of ECPN.

 

8. Mentorship program update (Eliza) – Program is on unofficial hiatus, because it’s grown so substantially in size, an has become an administrative burden for Ryan.  Needed time to take stock of the success of the mentor-mentee matches.  Reviewed applications and matching methods.  Matches could be strengthened if there were projects for mentors-mentees to work on.  Come up with a list of tasks that they would like to work on, and then reach out to the current group of mentors and mentees.  Ask them if they are still interested in participating, and what tasks they would like to work on together.  Then, also work on revamping the program, and create a branched program, like the “Find a Conservator” section of the AIC website.  Identify tasks that aren’t time consuming (ie, lab tour), and conservators willing to do those could add that to their profiles.  For more time-consuming projects, continue with the ongoing mentoring relationship.  How to sustain the relationships is another concern.  It is currently on the shoulders of the mentor-mentee, but could have a mentorship “kit” that would provide a framework and give suggestions and ideas on how to move forward and maintain the connection.  Look at other programs for ideas.  Gwen Manthey, WUDPAC graduate at the Walters, is interested in working on the program and meeting some of these challenges.  Visit “Possible mentoring program projects” list on the Writeboard on Basecamp, and add any ideas to it.  Developing a sort of advisory group from Education & Training and ECPN, to help with matching the 33 people on the list now.  Emily mentioned that ETC would love to work on this.

 

9. ECPN and the Wikis – LeeAnn mentioned the January “Edit-A-Thon” planned for the Wikis.  Amy will follow up with Rachael Perkins-Arenstein to see what the opportunities could be for ECPN to participate, and to see what the next upcoming training date is for the Wiki software.  If appropriate, Amy can work with Rachael on a blog post to reach out to ECPN and let members know how to get involved.

 

10. Amber Kerr-Allison has completed her ECPN term. She has made a great contribution to growing ECPN over the past four years.  The committee is deeply grateful for her sustained commitment to ECPN.

 

Next call: Monday, December 19 at 1pm ET

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Amy Brost