Survey for Collection Managers and Registrars about Developing a Preventive Conservation Major at Winterthur

As collection managers and registrars, we are charged with a wide array of responsibilities in administrating the balance between preservation and access for collections. Preventive conservation has grown expansively since the 1980s. With it came new technologies, new procedures, and new discussions about how staff should design and execute preservation procedures. And while many conservators are charged with the physical integrity of collections, most American programs did not start including preventive conservation training in their programs until the mid-1990s. The focus has been on treatment of specific materials, rather than the programs, risk assessment, planning, and management required of preventive conservation.

The Winterthur University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation is currently exploring developing a preventive conservation major. Wisely, they are looking to the potential colleagues of these preventive conservators to gauge what sorts of expertise are needed in the field. The following link takes you to a survey that will help them in their planning. The survey closed at 8pm EDT on Sunday, April 3, 2016.

Survey here. 

Kimberley-Clark Safeskin Purple Nitrile Powder Free Exam gloves. Read my post on getting rid of white cotton gloves for museum use and switching to nitrile here.

About Becky Fifield

Becky Fifield is a cultural heritage professional with 25 years experience in institutions large and small. She is currently Head of Collection Management for the Special Collections of the New York Public Library. An advocate for preventive conservation, Ms. Fifield is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation, Chair of the AIC Collection Care Network, and former Chair of Alliance for Response NYC. She is also a scholar of 18th century female unfree labor and dress. There's a bit of pun in the title The Still Room, delineating a quiet space brimming with the ingredients of memory, where consideration, analysis, and wordcraft can take place. Ms. Fifield’s interests include museum practice, dress history, historic preservation, transit, social and women’s history, food, current events, geneaology, roadtrips, and considerations on general sense of place. Becky and her husband, Dr. V, live in the Hudson Valley.

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