Category: AIC’s Annual Meeting

Provides the membership with updated news about the annual meeting. Also announces themes, deadlines for papers, need for volunteers, etc.

Portfolios and career transitions: pre-program, graduate, and post-graduate portfolio tips

The following article was written by Suzanne Davis and posted on her behalf by Carrie Roberts. Suzanne Davis is Associate Curator of Conservation at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, and a member of the Education and Training Committee of AIC. Suzanne will be speaking on the subject of conservation portfolios at ECPN’s Portfolio Seminar at AIC’s 41st Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 starting at 4PM.
I can still remember the satisfaction of creating my portfolio in graduate school. This was before digital photography or Adobe Photoshop, and the black cloth-covered binder is filled with slides, black and white photographs (that I printed myself in my school’s cramped dark room), and intricate hand-drawn condition diagrams. Sixteen years later, this binder sits on the bookshelves just above my desk at work, and I still like to look at it sometimes.
Your portfolio is a representation of your identity as a conservator and scholar, so it’s a good idea to be constructive and discriminating in the way you assemble and use it. Typically it’s most useful early in your career, at a time when you might feel pressure to showcase every conservation experience you’ve ever had. But it can serve you best if you’re selective. Think about what you want a review committee to notice, and which experiences you want to highlight. Make it work for you.
If you’re applying to a graduate program, the admissions committee will be concerned with your academic ability in addition to your pre-program conservation experience. If you’ve undertaken research projects in conservation or a related field like art history or archaeology, feature these! The committee will also be looking to see if your research and career interests are a good fit for their program. How does your portfolio demonstrate this? At this stage in your career, your portfolio should clearly reflect your academic identity, interests, and your potential to succeed as student and professional.
Once in graduate school, it’s most helpful to think about your vision for your future. Knowing what kind of job you’d ultimately like to have will help you shape your graduate experience, choose classes and internships, and create a useful portfolio.  Talk to conservators who have the kind of job you’d like. Try to intern with them, if possible. Learn what do they do every day, and what experiences and skills they value. What would they want a prospective employee to feature in a portfolio?
When using your portfolio to apply for post-graduate fellowships and jobs, it’s important that it reflect the full range of your experience. Many portfolios that I see for young conservators focus almost exclusively on conservation treatments and technical studies. But treatment is only one small piece of what most professional conservators do on a daily basis, and technical research is an even smaller component. Preventive conservation knowledge is very important, as is the ability to assess condition, prioritize work, and manage projects. The same is true for communication skills and working with students and volunteers. Experience with outreach and education activities is also good. As you read a fellowship or job description, think about ways to use your portfolio to highlight the skills and experience that the employer seeks.
When presenting your portfolio in an interview, it’s useful to pre-select the projects you’ll discuss. If it will be reviewed in your absence, indicate the projects you’d like reviewers to turn to first. The portfolio should be well-organized, with a table of contents and tabs that will make different sections easy to find.  Consider including short project summaries to give readers a quick overview of each experience. Too much information can be overwhelming, so think about removing projects that are not relevant and do not contribute to the overall message you want to communicate. Many prospective employers will expect a presentation in addition to or in place of the portfolio, so spend some time thinking about how to translate the experience captured in your portfolio into an engaging talk.
Finally – and this is very important – don’t focus on your portfolio to the neglect of other application components. An interview and portfolio review is usually the very last step in a selection process. Without a well-crafted curriculum vitae and cover letter or personal statement, no one is ever likely to see your amazing portfolio. Good luck!
ECPN’s Portfolio Seminar is a FREE event for AIC’s 41st Annual Meeting attendees and will cover topics including ideas for building your portfolio, digital portfolios, and ‘beyond the portfolio’ topics like application materials and networking.
If you are a conservation student or recent graduate and are interested in sharing your portfolio during the ECPN Portfolio Seminar, please contact Carrie Roberts at carrizabel@gmail.com.

ECPN Portfolio Seminar at AIC’s 41st Annual Meeting

The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network will be hosting a portfolio sharing event at the 41st AIC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis. This year’s portfolio seminar will take place on Wednesday, May 29th, from 4-6pm, and will include speakers, a discussion panel, a Q&A section, as well as a chance for students and recently graduated conservators to share their portfolios. First-year through fourth-year students and recent graduates are invited to present their portfolios during the portfolio sharing session near the end of the seminar. As with last year’s session, contributors will be present to answer questions and interact with the individuals viewing their portfolios; however, no formal presentations will be required of the portfolio presenters. Graduate students interested in presenting their portfolios should contact their program’s ECPN liaison. Recent graduates should contact Carrie Roberts at: carrizabel@gmail.com.  Hope to see you in Indianapolis!

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 3 – Traveling exhibits & collection care training

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. This post covers some of the conversation at Table 3. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table Three: The discussion at the table focused on how to provide more access to collection care information delivered in an efficient and effective way. As a professional beginning in the field I was interested in learning about the many resources and approaches that already exist and what my colleagues found best suited to the needs of the audience.

The video: Emma Westling, Touring Exhibits Coordinator for the Museum of Science, Boston outlined her duties at the Museum and her work touring exhibits to various venues. She wished to have access to previously developed training materials to educate and provide professional development for institutions that may not have dedicated collections professionals. She pointed out that staff could improve collection care for their own collections as well as for loaned objects in their care.

The discussion: Although we began by considering loan shows to institutions with staff that may have a limited knowledge about a particular type of object or material, the discussions moved to discussing the intended audience. From diverse backgrounds, they bring a range of expertise to preservation. They meet the daily challenges of finding sufficient time, money, and staff hours to carry out their work. In time are conversation transitioned into what were some of the best ways to engage and to meet the needs of this audience. We talked about how training for its own sake was a worthy goal, but when faced with the numerous demands competing for time and resources, a more strategic approach is required. Those who had developed on-line resources and presented programs and seminars found that successful programming hinges on delivering information at the moment individuals are looking for it. The challenge is using methods that get the right information to the intended audience at the right time.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

  • Create a free and searchable on-line resource that organizes the collection care information and training available to the preservation community.
  • Develop a knowledge base on specialized topics with content provided by experts in that area.
  • Build a forum to foster interactivity.

The contributors: Moderator – Gretchen Guidess; Note Taker: Patti Dambaugh; Table participants: Kathy Francis, Kristen Laise, Chris McAfee, Kay Söderlund, Sarah Stauderman

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 8 – Natural History Collections

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 8. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table eight: I was particularly pleased to be able to moderate the discussion at table eight as natural history collections have been a focus of my conservation career. While the materials that make up these collections are familiar to all conservators, the approach to their care and management varies from that for art, humanities, and technology collections.  Archaeological collections are the only ones that rival those in natural sciences in terms of size. Holdings in a mid-sized natural history museum often number in the millions, if not tens of millions of specimens, plus their associated documentation, ranging from books and manuscripts to all types of photographic formats and digital media.

The video: The video presenter was Dr. Christopher Norris, Senior Collections Manager for Vertebrate Paleontology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.  Chris is also the President of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC).  In his presentation, Chris noted that for natural history curators and collection managers, the biggest challenge is the size of the collections. “We have so many specimens, so many objects to deal with, that it’s very hard for us to make decisions about conserving those objects on the basis of individual object-based treatments; we have to focus in on preventive conservation. This, I think, is a very good area where SPNHC can work with the Collections Care Network at AIC to come up with some really creative solutions to our problems.” He suggested that this could be a two-way process in which SPNHC members, who have a great deal of experience in working with large collections, could tap into the conservation expertise of AIC and those in AIC that have had more experience in object-based treatments can begin to learn about and understand some of the conservation challenges that we face in natural history collections. He closed the video by commenting that he viewed this as a great opportunity for the two groups to work together and that SPNHC looks forward to working with the Collection Care Network.

The discussion: The discussion around table eight started with the ways all the recognized agents of deterioration impact natural history collections and how the impacts can vary among these collections.  A number of questions were asked about the overall goals for collaboration—solutions to specific problems or simply greater understanding between the groups. This led to brainstorming about available resources and mechanisms to deliver these to a relatively new audience.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

  • Given the range of materials in these collections, all expertise has applications. Would conservators answer questions in an open forum? The answer was decided positive, even though it was recognized that there were limits to the kind of information that can be shared effectively in this manner. A forum could foster a discussion model for information exchange.
  • Would be good to compile a list of resources that are currently available. There are many useful sites and freely available publications, but not all can be found easily. Possible topics include funding opportunities and risk assessment methodologies.
  • Use websites to help disseminate information. The planned AIC Storage of Technology, Arts, Science, and Humanities (STASH) project, which is based on a book published by SPNHC, will be a web-based resource with broad applicability and will involve a variety of organizations.
  • Might be able to use the Wiki format as a way to link to other sites and other information resources. Could post case studies or link to case studies, using a formats employed by other organizations (e.g., the Getty Conservation Institute), although it requires a great deal of work to create and maintain this type of site. AIC is a good group to tackle this and already has experience in creating Wikis.
  • In engaging other organizations, appreciate their standards and the ways they approach and use their collections. People enjoy talking about their collections and this can be an opening for dialog.
  • Conduct surveys to find out what people in various fields want/need to know.
  • View this as an opportunity to promote networking among mid-career professionals, pre-program interns, and museum studies students.
  • Create opportunities for conservators, collections managers, and curators to meet to exchange ideas. This might be done through joint meetings with representatives from other organizations, or possibly have special one-day joint sessions affiliated with annual meetings of both AIC and other organizations. Could begin with a half-day session with representatives from various groups as part of an upcoming AIC meeting. AIC could follow-up with sessions at the meetings of other organizations.
  • Highlight the Collection Care Network whenever AIC has a booth at another organization’s meetings.
  • Some of the richest and most useful sessions now held at AIC meetings are those in which an array of different perspectives are presented,  including perspectives from outside conservation. We could use this format to encourage dialog across numerous fields. This would aid in introducing all of us to each other, bringing a range of organizations to the attention of the natural history field and simultaneously allowing conservator, mountmakers, registrars, etc. to share expertise among themselves as well as among colleagues in natural science disciplines.

The contributors: Moderator – Catharine Hawks; Note Taker – Ellen Promise; Table participants – Catherine Badot-Costello, Lisa Goldberg, Leslie Goldman, Kazuko Hioki, Andrea Knowlton, Katie Mullen, Betty Seifert, Bill Wei, Emily Williams.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 7 – an architect’s view

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 7. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table Seven: Building design is a topic near and dear to my heart as I am constantly reminded of its impact on collections care. Understanding the environment in which one’s collection is housed is critical to preventive conservation, and a well designed and built/remodeled structure can make all the difference. Most conservators and collections care professionals participate infrequently in building projects, so sharing information and experiences is key to successful outcomes. Until we demonstrate the value of collections care input in the planning process, specialists in this field will continue to be consulted too little and too late.

The video: The video presenter was Samuel Anderson, an architect based in New York City. Sam is the principal of Samuel Anderson Architects, and includes conservation facilities, museums, and collections storage amongst his specialties.

In his video, he requests collections care information that has been vetted by conservators, including recommended literature. Sam seeks positive, optimistic language to communicate the importance of collections care considerations in building design to “decision makers”.

The discussion: We discussed that it is expensive and really beyond our means to establish standards, but that we can participate in the mechanisms that are already in place for this activity. We need to make collections care specialists aware of standards and how they might apply to their situation. Additionally, gathering and sharing information that is already out there and making it pertinent in terms of how one applies it to their particular situation would be a big step in the right direction. We recognize that “boiler plate” information is desired, so sharing something about the nuances of our expertise is critical for proper decision making.

Information if this sort needs to be flexible and affordable (we liked what Sam said about flexibility). Small and micro-small institutions need recommendations that they can implement. For example, basic tenets of storage encourage consideration of people in the space (or not), disaster recovery, and pest prevention.

We discussed what resources would be the most useful for the one-pager on collections care? These ranged from SPNCH guides to ASHRAE chapters, which would be hard to combine and distill to one page.

Lots of ideas of about information sharing mechanisms came up: there is already a LinkdIn group for collections care, collaborative knowledge is created via QUORA. Folks asked: Do we want to have architects and engineers come and talk to us? Building projects are more of a one-off experience for most conservators, and the necessary expertise comes from experience.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects (in no particular order):

  • Ally with Smithsonian conference on cultural property protection as this annual meeting deals with risk assessment and risk management.
  • Ally with museum and other collections facilities’ engineers and mechanical specialists
  • Communicate info via wiki, website, workshop – to share resources.
  • Share information with students and others who want to work with collections – it would help to get this info in the hands of broadly educated people who participate in building design.
  • Assess and comment on existing standards and guidelines such as NFPA, ASHRAE, etc.
  • Teach and learn technical language of various professions (including ours)
  • Perhaps develop one-page info sheets on different topics – storage basics, exhibition galleries, lighting, environmental control.

The contributors: Moderator – Patty Silence; Note Taker -Jennifer  Hain-Teper ; Table participants – Whitney Baker, Stephanie Gowler, Rick Kerschner, Richard McCoy, Susan Russick

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 1 – Mountmaking

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 1. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table One: I greatly appreciate the importance of good mounts both for visitor experience and for conservation so I was quick to volunteer to moderate the discussion at this table.  Due to the diversity of issues raised in the video and of perspectives around the table our discussions quickly became wide ranging.  Our table’s discussion dealt more with how we collaborate rather than what topics we deal with first.

The video: The video presenter was Shelley Uhlir, staff mount maker at the National Museum of the American Indian.  Shelley loved the idea of bringing together different but complimentary disciplines, of mount making and conservation.  She had seen the power of such collaboration in a mount-making forum held at the Smithsonian in 2010.  In that venue a wonderful conversation and exchange of ideas between mount makers and conservators took place.  Shelley hopes the CCN could make that sort of exchange available anywhere and anytime.   She went on to suggest a wide range of issues to address and kinds of information to exchange.

The discussion: Probably because the video was so clear and comprehensive in describing topics for interaction between conservators and mount makers the group discussion quickly turned to issues of how to facilitate exchange of information, particularly over the internet.  Concerns were raised about the person time required to maintain currency of information and several good suggestions were made.  The idea of having a credible source for information on the internet was especially appreciated and the importance of maintaining credibility emphasized.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

  • Establish a Wiki or similar platform for sharing relevant information, especially providing links to the most reliable current information and not striving to reinvent the wheel.
  • Provide a venue for publishing reports on specific, small collection management and care related studies.  Such reports might be too narrow and focused for traditional publications but be valuable to colleagues facing similar challenges.
  • Establish dates for themed discussions, for example, selection and use of materials for mounts.
  • Possibly in conjunction with themed discussions, have a small group work intensively for two days to bring together a news report like summary of best current methods and information on a specific topic.

The contributors: Moderator – Robert Waller; Note Taker – Rob Lewis; Table participants – Priscilla Anderson, Jody Breek, Jennifer le Cruise, James Gilbert, Pip Laurenson

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 9 – Collections Managers and Other Collections Staff

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest project the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged the had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 9. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

 Table Nine: Collections Managers are not bountifully represented at AIC – we are in the minority. However, in my role as Collections Manager for the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, my responsibility is to put conservation theory into practice. I work closely with our departmental conservators. The Collection Care Network encourages all staff vested in collection care to get involved, so it was important that one of our discussion groups talked about working with allied collections professionals.

The video: The video presenter was Derya Golpinar, Assistant Registrar for Collections at the Rubin Museum in New York. In the video, Derya described her daily responsibilities, including maintaining proper environment, security, identifying potential condition issues with the collections, and identifying appropriate conservators and other experts to consult on overall preservation issues impacting the collections. It is a role that Derya described as liaising with all departments of the museum to create a coordinated preservation effort.

In her former position as Collections Manager at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, many of Derya’s responsibilities were the same, even though her title was different. This underlines the occasional lack of clarity of roles among collections staff. From this discussion of her role, the following questions were posed to meeting attendees:

  • Collections Managers and Registrars apply much of the conservation ideals the field establishes. How can we support them as a professional in reaching these goals?
  • How can titles affect professional standing for this group? Is there a benefit to having more standardized titles?
  • In some cases conservators are the employers of collections managers, and in others, collections managers are the employers of conservators. What are the skill sets that we share? What information do museums need from us when establishing preservation staff roles?
  • Much of what collections managers do is implement the ideals of preventive conservation, but they themselves do not have a professional organization, or clear pathways to entry level or mid-career training. What programs do you feel to be the best? What training would you identify for a collection manager at mid-career? In what areas should conservators and collection managers train together?
  • How do we increase visibility, and therefore better support collection care?

The discussion:  The topic – discussing collection staff – came as a surprise to Table 9’s participants. Interestingly, most of the participants at Table 9 were not institution-based conservators, but instead worked in private practice. They also usually were contracted to perform treatments, rather than examine and establish collection care policy and procedures. It was evident that traditional conservation training often does not address how conservators will work with others in preserving collections – one participant noted that she didn’t learn about collection managers until she was interning with a paper conservator. Another point made by Table 9 participants was that they often want to address collection care policy that may have led to damage they are contracted to repair, but that museums may not be receptive to this approach.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

  • Mid-career training for collection staff is often difficult to identify. Available training has often targeted conservators or is more entry level in nature. Needed training that would be useful to both conservators and collection mangers included mentorship opportunities, self-assessment, benchmarking, and fundraising.
  • Create tools to assist the private practice conservator address collection care when creating a contract with an institution.
  • All collection activities and staff need more visibility to generate support for collection care. Some ideas included public interaction when some collection care activities are taking place and web features that highlight behind the scenes work.
  • Increased communication and visibility of collection staff and their work can also assist conservators in furthering a preservation message.
  • AIC collaborations with organizations such as ICON, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, Association of Registrars and Collection Specialists, the Society of Historical Archaeology, regional organizations, and others can only help us to better understand each other’s goals and develop methods to work together.

The contributors:Moderator – Becky Fifield; Note Taker – Christian Hernandez; Table Participants – Molly Gleeson, Amy Brost, Kathryn Oat Grey, Nicholas Dorman, Melanie Brussat, Felicity Devlin, Ann Shaftel

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 6 – Day Lighting

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 6. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table Six: I was particularly pleased to be able to moderate the discussion at table six as day lighting is an environmental element I welcome and loathe all at the same time. Henry Francis DuPont’s house here at Winterthur has over 400 windows which allow day light to stream into the interior and allow visitors inside to see out the magnificent gardens. Without these windows the house would be a cave rather than a house. But without these windows we would also be able to drastically reduce the visible light and UV exposure our collection receives. I imagined moderating a discussion on day lighting would offer the opportunity to throw around problems, ideas and solutions with other equally interested colleagues.

The video: The video presenter was Matthew Tanteri, a lighting designer from New York City. Matthew owns Tanteri and Associates and is also an assistant professor at Parsons School of Design. At the start of his video he asks himself the question, ‘What do I want from a conservator?’ He then goes on to answer his own question with more questions:

  • What’s the duration of time I can have daylight on an artwork?
  • What wavelengths can I use?
  • What intensity can I use?

He closes the video by suggesting the Collection Care Network develop a database of daylighting solutions and knowledge.

The discussion: The discussion around table six started quickly with no need for prompting. It eventually focused around three different themes. First, finding ways to unite the language of conservators with that of lighting designers. Second, a general discussion of just how challenging it is to use daylight in museums. Third, the practicalities of developing a database of daylighting solutions that would be divided by geographic regions.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

  • Establish definitions and a common language for lighting and include a lighting designer in the project team.
  • Develop a list of questions that collection care professionals need to have answered before consulting with a designer – answers we need in order to be able to answer the designer’s questions.
  • Develop a database that would be divided by geographic regions and include daylighting solutions but also all design solutions that focus on sustainability.

The contributors: Moderator – Joelle Wickens; Note Taker – Julie Heath; Table participants – Seth Irwin, John Baty, Carmen Li, Katie Sanderson, Robert Koestler, Michael C Henry

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 5 – Alexander Architectural Archive Archivists

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection-care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 5. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table Five: Working with archivists is very close to my heart, so I was very happy to moderate table 5.  Archivists must deal with masses of materials and a collections approach is the only thing that normally makes any sense for them.  As such, I see archivists as a perfect community to work with the collections conservation network.

The video: This video has three speakers, Nancy Sparrow, Curatorial Assistant for Public Service, Beth Dodd, Curator, and Donna Coates, Technical Services and Collections Manager for the Alexander Architectural Archive at the University of Texas at Austin.   Like many archives, they are never likely to have a full-time conservator on staff and they seek avenues to communicate with the conservation community.  Some of the specific issues they have right now are:

  • How much light exposure can be allowed for architectural linens?  They need more specific information than is given in the current NISO standards.
  • They need to display fragile, oversize materials periodically.  One iconic drawing on tracing paper is about 4′ x 8′, and needs to be displayed several times each year.  They  would like ideas or guidelines for handling the materials safely.
  • Can they, or the student workers who work with them, perform minor treatments, such as small mends and simple mold removal, in-house?  Can conservators provide guidelines for what can, and cannot be done in-house without a conservator on staff?

Each of the archivists in the video has great respect for conservators and would like a closer relationship with that community.

The discussion: The video prompted a lively discussion about the need to make straightforward, accessible information about conservation and preservation readily available to the public.  An interesting idea to come out of this session is working toward manning a “hot line” staffed by conservators.  The public could call in and get advice, and pay a fee when possible. In some cases, rather than being billed they might be sent a receipt for an in-kind donation that might be used toward a grant or another effort.  This might give the public access to conservation information and let them understand the cost associated with the information.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

  • Use social networking tools to make information available.
  • Publish guidelines for care, display and handling.
  • Collections Link in the UK might provide some models for us to consider.

The contributors: Moderator – Karen Pavelka; Note Taker – Amanda Holden; Table participants -Kristen Adsit, Jane Hinger , Rustin Levenson, Josefina Lopez, Caroline Peach, David West

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Photographic Materials Session, May 11, “The Photograph Information Record” by Erin Murphy and Nora Kennedy

At last month’s AIC meeting, I had the pleasure of attending several of the PMG sessions, including this one on the Photograph Information Record, or “PIR” for short.  The form was introduced in 2009 following several years of collaboration between the Photographic Materials Research Group, photograph conservators, and colleagues in conservation science, collections management, and curatorial.  The goal was to create an international standard for an artist’s questionnaire, to collect essential information to aid in preservation efforts. The result was a concise, two-page form.  A completed PIR covers the history and context of creation, ownership, exhibition, conservation, and publication of a photograph, and provides information about the tools and processes of image creation, printing, and finishing.  It asks artists to discuss what aspects of the work they consider integral, and gives them an opportunity to provide a statement about the creation and preservation of the work.

In this session Erin Murphy, photograph conservator at the New York Public Library, reviewed the history of the PIR and discussed its present stage of development.  Many institutions around the world have formally adopted the PIR, and now plans are underway to collect feedback from users in order to develop the next generation – a new and improved form.

French, Spanish, and Japanese versions are available, with more translations in the works.  For some committees working on translations, it poses a real challenge to agree on terminology or create terms in the language that didn’t exist before.  Some mentioned that those discussions may be suitable for the wiki, and for the glossary project.

Future goals include expanding the visibility and availability of the PIR on the web.  Right now, the form is available in several languages as a free download on the AIC website at www.conservation-us.org/PIR.  ICOM-CC-PM members can access it on the ICOM-CC website.  The form can also be found on a few other sites, such as a gallery or library here and there. A secondary PR campaign will also help raise awareness and encourage more institutions, galleries, and photographers themselves to adopt this valuable tool.  Some attendees suggested potential audiences, including photography curators, and the registrars’ groups of AAM and ICOM.

Another goal is to see if improvements can be made to the PDF format.  Form fields in the PDF make it easy to complete the form, but the information is not easy to import into museum databases.  The PIR’s creators would also like to see access to the PIR expand within institutions to reach more departments and researchers.

It’ll be exciting to see the new directions that the PIR form takes in the coming months.