Understanding the environment your collections are housed in is not a new concept. Curators and collectors have historically recognized that things like sun exposure, moisture levels, and heat can cause significant damage to items meant to be preserved for ages. For some time, however, the means by which collection spaces could be evaluated were limited. […]
What is “preventive conservation?” Preventive conservation is an umbrella term within the preservation world that describes actions meant to prevent damage to cultural heritage, or at least reduce the likelihood of damage (Caple 2012). Preventive conservation typically does not involve physical modification of an object. Rather, it addresses external factors like environmental conditions or how […]
The Definitive Guide to Environmental Monitoring for Collections?! We’ve long had the idea for a definitive guide to environmental monitoring for collections – the topic of this post. The idea of a definitive guide is a bit tongue in cheek. When we started Conserv in the fall of 2018, Nathan and I were convinced that […]
FAIC’s Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) and Conserv are partnering to help small and mid-sized museums manage their collection environments with confidence. What is the Small Collections Monitoring Program? We, at Conserv, developed the Small Collections Monitoring Program because we receive used, but functioning data loggers as trade-ins from institutions that have purchased environmental monitoring […]
An effective environmental monitoring program is about more than measuring the environment. There are many challenges that need to be overcome to properly protect a collection: Staff may not be available for full-time monitoring Storage locations may be many and far apart Facilities teams and conservation teams may not have regular communications Collections staff may […]
Conserv at the SMA Annual Conference I was fortunate to represent Conserv at the 2022 Small Museums Association (SMA) 38th Annual Conference this year in College Park Maryland. It was my first time attending this conference, and it was so refreshing to see fellow museum professionals in person again. Conserv chose to sponsor this event […]
Team Conserv recently joined over 1,000 conservation and collections care professionals at the 2022 AIC Annual Conference in Los Angeles, CA. The American Institute for Conservation (AIC) celebrated its 50th birthday with an energizing meeting full of conversations about the past, present, and future of cultural heritage conservation. Conserv co-founders Austin Senseman and Nathan McMinn […]
Maria Bastidas-Spence of the Conserv Community Board has a background in Conservation and Marketing and holds a MA in Museums, Galleries and Contemporary Culture from the University of Westminster in the UK. Maria has experience in collection care working for museums in the United Kingdom and Colombia. For the past seven years, she has been […]
May 1 is Mayday, which was established by the Society of American Archivists and Heritage Preservation, now part of the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation, to raise awareness of disaster preparedness and encourage preservation professionals to take responsibility for doing one thing to improve their readiness for disasters. We recently sat down with Conserv customer […]
The team at Conserv is growing! This week we are introducing: Dave Masom. He is our new Chief Product Officer. Before joining Conserv, Dave worked for seven years at Pack Health, where he oversaw Product Management, Product Design, and Analytics as VP of Product. Dave has also worked as a consultant in the social enterprise […]
