Author: Ryan Winfield

Blogging at the 2010 AIC Annual Meeting

Will you be attending AIC’s annual meeting next month? Do you like sharing information with your colleagues? Do you take good notes? Are you always online? If so – then we have a job for you!

We are looking for candidates to post on the AIC blog about the content of talks given at the meeting. We are ideally looking for two individuals to share the coverage of talks at each specialty group session. Bloggers will be trained on a short conference call prior to the meeting on how to access and post to the Blog. If you are interested in being considered, please contact the AIC E-editor Rachael Arenstein at Rachael@amartconservation.com.

ECPN on Facebook

Recently, the ECPN has expanded their social media network to include a Facebook group. In the survey sent out by AIC asking what members wanted from the ECPN; the vast majority stated that the original Ning site was outdated and they would prefer a Facebook page. Ask and you shall receive.. Emerging Conservation Professionals Network.

The group page is open to anyone who would like to join and there are currently 83 members. The page is also open to allow anyone that wishes to post to the wall, start discussions, post events, and pictures.

The hope is that the Facebook group will give AIC and ECPN members, prospective members, and those just interested in conservation a place to openly and informally chat about events, programs, projects, etc. This is the place to through out questions like; “Does anyone want to share a hotel room at AIC?” or “Who has gone through the graduate program at X and did you have professor X?”.

Remember this is your social media so it only works if you use it. So invite your classmates and friends and start connecting.

French Conservation Center Concerns

IIC has posted a story about the insecure future of the French conservation center, Centre de Recherche & de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF).

According to IIC,

For more than three years, the French Ministry of Culture has been planning the relocation of the facility as part of the expansion of exhibition space in the Louvre palace and the planned establishment of a new storage centre for the Paris area museums. It is reported that the prolonged period of uncertainty, and the lack of consultation and information about the Centre’s future is raising concerns about the potential loss of skills and facilities that have taken decades to build up.

Read more on IIC’s site and http://laboratoiredulouvre.blogspot.com/

Sign the web-based petition to the French government to save the center

Business Meeting Minutes

Attention AIC members: the 2009 Business meeting minutes are available on the “About AIC” page of the website, www.conservation-us.org/aboutaic.

There will be a vote to approve these minutes at this year’s AIC Members Business Meeting in Milwaukee, May 13, 12:00 P.M. – 2:00 P.M.

For more information on getting to Milwaukee and registering for the Annual Meeting, visit www.conservation-us.org/meetings

“500 Words or Less.”

“500 Words or Less.” A workshop about writing abstracts or short proposals. 20 April 2010 . 11am US Eastern time (GMT -5) 90 minutes.

More information at http://bit.ly/AWW_410 or http://bit.ly/AWW_410sc

Members of the Emerging Conservation Professionals can claim the discount by noting “ECPN” in the discount code section of the online form.

If 5 or more get together to join, I’ll drop the price further — just email me.

IMLS Announces Kennelly as New Grants Management Officer

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is happy to announce the selection of Mary Estelle Kennelly as the Grants Management Officer. Ms. Kennelly has been with the agency since its inception in 1996 and with its predecessor, the Institute of Museum Services, for three years before that. She has held several positions, most recently Associate Deputy Director for Museum Services.

“I’m very excited to take on this new challenge,” Kennelly said. “I believe in IMLS and its mission, and am looking forward to working with the museums, libraries, and archives that use IMLS funding to serve the American public.”

In her new position, Ms. Kennelly will join IMLS’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and take primary responsibility for ensuring uniform grant administration throughout the agency; developing, recommending, and implementing post-award grant administration policy; and managing all fiscal grant requirements for the agency. She will work with the Office of Library Services and the Office of Museum Services to ensure compliance with federal requirements and agency policies so that IMLS’s grant programs meet the highest management and fiduciary standards while furthering the agency’s mission.

In addition, Ms. Kennelly will act as the agency liaison to the government-wide Grants Management Line of Business (GMLoB) taskforce as well as the Grants.gov initiative, and serve as the agency’s primary member of the Grants Executive Board.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute’s mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development.

Art Damage and Diminished Value

This post on the Emerald Art Services’ Blog gives discusses issues relating to damage and diminished value from an appraiser’s point of view. The post contains information useful to conservators on how phrases in treatment reports can be misinterpreted as well as a good non-technical introduction to the issue for owners.

Has anyone had useful experiences in dealing with the insurance industry or recovery companies that they would like to share?

MayDay & Prize Drawing

MayDay 2010 is coming up on May 1. Each year, archives, libraries, museums, and arts and historic preservation organizations participate in the initiative to protect cultural heritage from disasters.

Our buddies at Heritage Preservation and Gaylord Brothers are doing a prize drawing this year. Submit a brief description of what your organization does for MayDay by May 21, 2010, and you will be entered in a random drawing to win one of four prizes donated by Gaylord Brothers. The prizes include a React Paktm, a Collections Protection Kit, Rescubes®, and Leak Alert Water Detectors.

Learn more and enter the drawing>>

Meg Craft discusses AIC

The following are my notes from a meeting with Meg Craft and Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation faculty and students on March 11, 2010.

The meeting began with a brief description of AIC:
It is a membership organization instead of a institutional organization.
There are 3,300 members
supported by a staff of 10
FAIC is a separate organization, AIC is the office and membership portion
Both are non-profit, but the FAIC applies for educational grants, receives donations, while AIC is in a better position for political advocacy. AIC is the only member of FAIC, we are all members of AIC

Current Topics – Environmental Standards

One activity this year is the re-assessment of environmental standards. AIC cannot change or make up the standards, but they can form a committee or a task force to keep everyone informed. The IIC roundtable at the AIC 2010 meeting will give us a litmus test of how everyone feels about changing standards. Sustainability, Economics, protection of objects, need for access, we’ve reached this point by which we need to re-evaluate. AIC can be a resource and a place to put this information about environmental mangement and make it available to all members

CoOL – Conservation OnLine

Cool – COnservation OnLine has been taken over by FAIC. We would like it to be maintained made into a functional and growing resource. There are significant costs to maintain and operate the website. The site needs to be mapped, and there are numerous broken links on the site. If you find a broken link send it to Brett Rogers or Rachel Arenstein at AIC.

Who uses the resources in Cool? Mainly developing countries and conservation programs without library sources use cool as a primary source. AIC is looking to form an international board, and they have a strategic plan. Mapping will not be very expensive, but will require organization. They are looking at putting CoOL in other languages.

Ethics Complaints

There has been an increase in ethics complaints, now more than ½ the membership is in private practice. Meg encouraged students to use a contract for everything, write down changes and risks involved in treatments and have the owner sign the contract before the treatment and if there are changes add these in the margins and initial at the end when the object is returned. Since it is always not possible to predict if your client will like their object after it has been treated, be sure to outline how it will look post-treatment as much as possible.

How to get more involved – thoughts from Meg Craft and the students

The meeting ended with a discussion of how students could be more involved in AIC, Meg suggested joining a specialty group, becoming involved with Angel’s Projects, helping out with the online projects as needed (CoOL, the Wiki), offering to edit JAIC, and/or writing a book review for the JAIC (bonus – you can keep the book! AIC has a stock of books waiting to be reviewed). For the journal information you can contact Brett Rodgers at AIC. It was also mentioned that we may begin a ‘student day’ at the AIC annual meeting which would offer a great opportunity for students to present their work.

Overall, it was a great introduction to AIC and what is currently on the President’s desk. Thanks to Meg for taking time out of your lunch to update us all.