{"id":10585,"date":"2014-06-10T19:30:13","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T00:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/?p=10585"},"modified":"2014-06-10T19:30:13","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T00:30:13","slug":"42nd-annual-meeting-general-session-may-30-using-webinars-to-tackle-conservation-misinformation-in-ontarios-community-museums-by-fiona-graham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2014\/06\/10\/42nd-annual-meeting-general-session-may-30-using-webinars-to-tackle-conservation-misinformation-in-ontarios-community-museums-by-fiona-graham\/","title":{"rendered":"42nd Annual Meeting- General Session, May 30, "Using Webinars to Tackle Conservation Misinformation in Ontario's Community Museums" by Fiona Graham"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cConservation is an elusive practice just outside of budgetary reality.\u201d \u00a0Fiona Graham, a conservation consultant in Kingston, Ontario, received this comment in a survey filled out by a small museum in Ontario, and it made her take notice. \u00a0Museums believing that conservation only equates to (costly) treatment leaves no room for implementing best practices, taking vital preventive measures, and leads to a general misunderstanding of the basic principles of preservation. \u00a0Graham set out to change the perceptions of these museums and chose webinars as her format.
\nWho:<\/strong> Ontario\u2019s Community Museums–roughly 300 institutions that range in size but are not art galleries, private collections, or national museums. \u00a0Only 14 have in-house conservators (in one case, 9 museums share one conservator!). \u00a0The collection care for the remaining 286 falls into the hands of non-conservators.
\nWhy:<\/strong> 185 of those Ontario Community Museums receive operating grants from the Ministry\u2019s Museum Unit to survive economically. \u00a0In order to receive these grants, the museums must meet regulatory requirements, including a conservation standard. \u00a0To assess the state of conservation and preservation in the museums, a questionnaire was distributed to the museums, and Graham and her team discovered some startling misunderstandings. \u00a0For example, many respondents believed that light damage was caused only by UV, that pesticides are still needed, and that cold temperatures are always bad for collections. \u00a0(Since they are in colder climates, it\u2019s especially disconcerting to think of the expenses paid to raise temperatures in these museums.)
\nWhat was done:<\/strong> \u00a0To debunk misunderstandings at as many of the museums as possible, the Ministry funded two 1.5 hour long webinars. \u00a0The webinar format was chosen because it can reach a targeted audience, has wide accessibility and the ability to be interactive, is inexpensive to produce, and has been successful through the Ontario Museums Association<\/a> (an organization that provides training in museum work). \u00a0After institutions answered preliminary questions on their registration forms, webinars were conducted as powerpoint presentations narrated live by a conservator using the icohere <\/a>platform. \u00a0The first webinar, Conservation 2.0<\/i>, was a \u201cgood practice\u201d refresher course meant for non-conservators, while the second, Climate Control: what do you really need?<\/i>, focused on misinformation hot spots. \u00a0Participants used their own computers and sent questions to a moderator who passed them to the conservator to answer. \u00a0The Ontario Museum Association posted the slide deck and audio to their website after the webinars ended.
\nMore details? \u00a0The prep questions: Define what conservation means in the context of your museums? What question about conservation would you like answered in this webinar? What do you think relative humidity and temp levels should be in your museum\u2019s collection areas? Do you monitor RH and\/or T; do you actively control RH? (The webinars included a disclaimer that \u201cthis webinar is not a substitute for proper training.\u201d)
\nResults:<\/strong> \u00a0The webinars were open to all, not just the Ministry-funded institutions, and 55 organizations participated during the live broadcasts. \u00a0The prep questions from the registration forms informed the content of the webinars. \u00a0There was positive feedback overall, with requests for more programs. \u00a0The negative feedback regarded the amount of detailed information on conservation. \u00a0Graham recommends being very clear on expectations. \u00a0The webinar team will be able to gauge the long-term results of the refresher courses during the next audit in 2018.
\n(Author\u2019s comments: This talk was part of the general session on Engaging Communities in Collections Care. \u00a0The U.S. Heritage Preservation<\/a> organization also offers webinars to help smaller institutions with collections care. \u00a0Their webinars are part of their Connecting to Collections<\/a> (C2C) online community. \u00a0Past programs are available in their archives.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cConservation is an elusive practice just outside of budgetary reality.\u201d \u00a0Fiona Graham, a conservation consultant in Kingston, Ontario, received this comment in a survey filled out by a small museum in Ontario, and it made her take notice. \u00a0Museums believing that conservation only equates to (costly) treatment leaves no room for implementing best practices, taking … Continue reading “42nd Annual Meeting- General Session, May 30, "Using Webinars to Tackle Conservation Misinformation in Ontario's Community Museums" by Fiona Graham”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":10236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,25,26,10],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-10585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-collectioncare","category-conservationeducation","category-general-sessions","tag-aics-42nd-annual-meeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}