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 … Continue reading

Museum Monday: New Frontiers

This month I begin a new venture: developing a preservation and emergency consulting practice. You can visit my new website at www.rebeccafifieldpreservation.com. I’ve largely been an institutional creature up to this point in my career. I crave process and figuring out systems … Continue reading

Museum Monday: Collection Care’s Identity Crisis

You might have had it happen. You are working in the gallery, grimacing at the amount of dust that’s built up, gently stroking a brush across an object’s surface with vacuum in hand, and a well-meaning supporter or visitor mouths … Continue reading

Off to the American Institute for Conservation Annual Meeting!

I’m off to Indianapolis for the American Institute for Conservation Annual Meeting in Indianapolis. While many of my colleagues at work got an early start on their Memorial Day weekend, I was busy crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s … Continue reading

Museum Monday: Tyvek Pillows for Object Transport

Never use sad, crumpled up pieces of tissue again for object transport! Switch to Tyvek pillows. While this isn’t a new idea, I assembled at least fifty of these in the last couple of years. I work with ethnographic sculpture, … Continue reading

Museum Monday: Some Essential Tools

There was a thread on the Registrar’s Committee of the American Association of Museum’s list serve this week about the Ideal Registration Kit. By the end of the week, the whole discussion had become rather punchy and the list had grown to … Continue reading

Museum Monday: Collection Care Isn’t A La Carte – Washington Conservation Guild

On Thursday, February 7, I was invited to speak to the Washington Conservation Guild about the state of collection care. Regular readers will know that this is a topic about which I’m passionate. Preventive care maintains our tangible heritage. End … Continue reading

Museum Monday – Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections

Spinach? It’s our not-quite-precise pronunciation of the SPNHC acronym for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections. Visit their website here. I have never worked for a natural history museum, but the challenges in preserving science collections for … Continue reading

Museum Monday: Collection Care Speaks – The Knole House Conservation Team Blog

How to cover a 400 year old mattress? Comparing dusts vacuumed from a chair every three years to tell if it is deteriorating? Condition survey of a stone floor, tile by tile? A mummified rat from the attic? That’s a … Continue reading

Museum Monday – What is a Collections Manager?

Nope, I’m not a curator; I’m a collections manager. Many visitors who stop me in the galleries try to demonstrate their museum savvy by asking “Are you the curator?” I take a moment to educate them about the various roles … Continue reading