#conservation

The Still Room Blog

Prepping for the American Institute for Conservation / Canadian Association for Conservation Meeting

Becky Fifield

Apr 25, 2016
2 min

Prepping for the American Institute for Conservation / Canadian Association for Conservation Meeting

Preservation professionals are getting ready for the joint American Institute for Conservation/ Canadian Association for Conservation’s joint meeting in Montreal, May 13-18. I like to use the term “preservation professionals” rather than conservators. Many of us work closely together to support each other’s goals for protection of cultural heritage. This year’s theme of Emergency! Preparing for Disasters and Confronting the Unexpected in Conservation has great capacity for a

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Becky Fifield

Mar 15, 2016
2 min

Share the Care: AIC’s Collection Care Network and the International Association of Museum Facility A

Think about it: how much time do you spend working with colleagues to achieve preservation-conducive conditions at your institution and managing expectations? How much of that work have you had to do on the fly? In the hall? At lunch? Looking at HVAC equipment, or over floodwaters? Wouldn’t you like to sit down and enjoy a day to focus on shared goals between conservation and facilities colleagues? Join the American Institute for Conservation’s (AIC) Collection Care Network (

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ARCS and PACCIN at New Orleans: Collections Stewardship’s Bright Future

Becky Fifield

Nov 17, 2015
3 min

ARCS and PACCIN at New Orleans: Collections Stewardship’s Bright Future

Originally published at rebeccafifieldpreservation.com. Lots of folks go to New Orleans for conferences. Within the distinctive streets of the French Quarter, it’s not uncommon to trip across people tagged with conference badges. The overtones of business lend an air of “networking” to the nightlife, though the line between tourist and conference-goer in New Orleans is rather thin. I saw at least 2 other conferences sharing the city with the conferences I was attending, the A

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Becky Fifield

May 11, 2015
2 min

Museum Monday: Off to Miami! American Institute for Conservation’s Annual Meeting

I’m headed to Miami for the American Institute for Conservation’s Annual Meeting. I look forward to seeing friends and hearing about the hard work they have been doing in preserving our cultural heritage. I’ll be seeing a lot of the inside of a modern meeting space, but will see more of Miami at AIC conference events at HistoryMiami and when I finally break free of the building for dinner. My schedule is full and varied; here are some highlights: Influencing for Impact: Leade

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Becky Fifield

Feb 27, 2015
2 min

The Pain of Mosul – A Preservation Professional’s Perspective

I have spent my life caring for cultural heritage. As a museum collection manager, my work aims to preserve the physical and intellectual values of collections by limiting risks, such as pollutants, inappropriate environment, pests, physical distortion, loss of information, and so on. When I was a teen, I worked with the rural material culture of Maryland farmers. Later, I worked with collections at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and eventually,

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Museum Monday: American Institute for Conservation Annual Meeting

Becky Fifield

Jun 10, 2013
2 min

Museum Monday: American Institute for Conservation Annual Meeting

American Institute for Conservation‘s Annual Meeting. I’ve been a member of AIC for about 10 years, and this conference was the best I’ve attended. Hats off to the staff of AIC and the organizing committee. I had no pre-conceived notions of Indy. I lumped it, in my east coast way, into that designation “bombed-out midwestern cities.” I was presently surprised by the people on the street in the downtown area. Indy seems to be a city of meetings – the convention center is the l

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Museum Monday: Tyvek Pillows for Object Transport

Becky Fifield

Mar 25, 2013
2 min

Museum Monday: Tyvek Pillows for Object Transport

Tyvek pillows with (back to front) Ethafoam crumb, polypropylene bead, and glass sand filling. RL Fifield, 2012. 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, much of which has experienced insect damage prior to its collection by museums. They have fragile surfaces of ritually applied materials. Th

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Becky Fifield

Mar 10, 2013
2 min

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 include a forklift (mind you, the tools were supposed to fit a small toolbox, or garden tool bag). But I enjoyed what tools colleagues had cobbled together for their work and there were some especially good ideas for head lamps. I’m a colle

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

Becky Fifield

Feb 11, 2013
2 min

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

Look at all those people who came to hear me! Washington Conservation Guild meeting, February 7, 2013. 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 story. If you wait for damage to occur, the most skilled conservation treatment can never fully restore the break, the crease, t

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Museum Monday: Who Makes Collections Care Happen?

Becky Fifield

Jan 7, 2013
5 min

Museum Monday: Who Makes Collections Care Happen?

Who Makes Collections Care Happen? Easy. Technicians dust artwork. But that’s a little simplistic view of both the work of a valuable, skilled technician, and collections care. Conservators make collections care happen! They study scientific reasons for deterioration and design and perform treatments to stabilize structure, consolidate painted surfaces, and prepare objects for loan and exhibit. They must care for collections! Conservators are certainly part of caring for col

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Becky Fifield

Nov 3, 2012
1 min

Hurricane Sandy: Resources for Museums, Libraries, Archives, and other Cultural Institutions

It’s been a busy week. As the Chair of Alliance for Response NYC, I’ve been busy trying to connect affected institutions with helping hands, information, and people in the government who can answer their questions. Below are some sites and opportunities for more information as we work through recovery, return to business, and begin again the planning and preparedenss phase. Heritage Preservation has a number of emergency resources online available for free download. The Emerg

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Museum Monday: Online Patterns of Eighteenth Century Garments from LACMA’s Collection

Becky Fifield

Sep 10, 2012
1 min

Museum Monday: Online Patterns of Eighteenth Century Garments from LACMA’s Collection

Speaking as a museum professional and a living history practitioner, what a great project. Theatrical designer Thomas John Bernard and Curatorial Assistant Clarissa Esguerra work with the collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Photo credit: LACMA. http://www.lacma.org/patterns At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s web page, conservators and curators worked with Thomas John Bernard, a theatrical designer, to create gridded patterns of four eighteenth century m

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Becky Fifield

Aug 20, 2012
2 min

Museum Monday: Dust

Where there is space, there is dust. RL Fifield dusting. Over dust, visitors to our museum and I connect. Dust is an ongoing challenge for collection care staff. It gets on your cases. It gets on objects on open display, such as the large wooden and stone sculptures in our galleries. Dust, plainly, is us. If we limited visitors to the galleries, we wouldn’t have such a dust problem. Obviously, that’s not a solution for museums. So combine dead skin, fibers from winter coats a

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Museum Monday: Hygrothermographs for the Layman

Becky Fifield

Aug 6, 2012
2 min

Museum Monday: Hygrothermographs for the Layman

What is that box with all the dials sitting in the corner of the gallery? A hygrothermograph. Photo: Oakton. Chances are, it’s a hygrothermograph. It’s a device that tracks temperature and relative humidity over time. Museum staff use it to understand the environment in a space, and how it is affecting the objects being displayed. So, you ask, why does this matter? Many objects are sensitive to changes in relative humidity. Think of doors that stick in their jambs in the summ

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Museum Monday: Collections Risk Assessment

Becky Fifield

Jul 16, 2012
1 min

Museum Monday: Collections Risk Assessment

It can be overwhelming. It can hurt your brain. But it can also help you understand your collection’s preservation needs like nothing else. Collections risk assessment. Ready? Collections risk assessment evaluates the impact of different specific risks on a collections unit. It’s a systematic way of generating data to illustrate to your administration, board, and supporters what work you need to do to protect collections. RL Fifield illustration, 2012. FS x LV x P x E = MR. T

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

Becky Fifield

Jun 4, 2012
1 min

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 quick romp through the preventive conservation blog of the Conservation Team at Knole House, a UK National Trust property. Knole House Blog, UK National Trust. http://knolenationaltrust.wordpress.com Knole House is doing the important work of making preventive con

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Museum Monday: Why Museums Don’t Have Pictures of Everything on Their Websites

Becky Fifield

May 14, 2012
2 min

Museum Monday: Why Museums Don’t Have Pictures of Everything on Their Websites

I hear the occasional grumble. Why is that photo of that object so bad? Why isn’t there an online database? Why are only selected objects online? Why can’t museums get their acts together? Creating a structure to fit a mid-1770s gown. RL Fifield, 2003. I worked on a grant project for three years photographing a large chunk of a major art museum’s costume collection. In that time, we photographed 7,000 objects in three years. Pre-Columbian textile fragments. Black socks. Purse

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Becky Fifield

Apr 25, 2012
3 min

Wanderlust Wednesday – Stockholm

Stockholm: scary sandwiches, incredible museums, and the beautiful islands which serve as the city’s perch. Stockholm. RL Fifield photo 2011. I visited Stockholm in September of 2011. Approximately fourteen islands make up Stockholm and the reflections off the water filled the autumn air with light. The two days I spent there were golden and warm – a passing Swede noted that this weather is called “Brit Summer” – this obviously can have nothing to do with the weather experien

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Becky Fifield

Apr 25, 2012
3 min

Wanderlust Wednesday – Stockholm

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Museum Monday – What is a Collections Manager?

Becky Fifield

Apr 23, 2012
2 min

Museum Monday – What is a Collections Manager?

Evaluating light levels falling on a textile on display. 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 required in a large museum. A collections manager oversees long-term preservation for collections. We can get caught up in the laundry list of activities we perform on a daily basis: environmental mon

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