AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

Preventive conservation, often heralded as the cornerstone of collection care, encompasses a broad range of tasks critical to preserving cultural heritage. However, the responsibilities of those in preventive roles, particularly early-career professionals, extend far beyond routine tasks of monitoring temperature and humidity or designing storage solutions. These "other duties as assigned" are often not quantifiable but offer invaluable learning experiences that shape a conservation professional’s critical thinking, adaptability, and problem-solving skills. This abstract explores the unspoken and often overlooked side tasks encountered during my experience as a pre-program Preservation Assistant at the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections.

Working in preventive conservation means consistently encountering unexpected challenges that require rapid learning, creativity, and a strong collaborative mindset. These tasks range from adjusting last-minute exhibition installations to emergently responding to a leak, each providing hands-on training in the essential skills of a preservation professional. Though seemingly peripheral, these tasks often become learning moments that reinforce core conservation principles.

One example is the creation of customized archival enclosures for materials with irregular dimensions and with high use in instruction settings. While this may seem like a routine technical skill, it becomes a nuanced problem-solving exercise requiring a balance between preservation needs, accessibility, and the available resources of the institution. Similarly, my involvement in exhibition preparation—installing, deinstalling, and fabricating mounts—taught me the value of adaptability. Decisions about object placement and long-term protection needed to be made in real-time, often with limited flexibility and strict deadlines. These experiences honed my ability to make informed decisions quickly, a crucial skill for any conservator.

Beyond practical skills, this work fostered collaboration with various departments, from curators and archivists to facilities staff, strengthening my communication abilities. Preventive conservation often demands interdisciplinary cooperation and consultation with those less familiar with preservation, and understanding how to effectively convey the needs of collection care to those outside the field proved vital. These instances also introduced the opportunity for me to develop creative methods of communication, such as an internal ‘Bug Bulletin’ for integrated pest management and a standardized quarterly report for climate data. The insights gained from these collaborative efforts are lessons that have implications far beyond my role as a Preservation Assistant, contributing to my broader understanding of conservation workflows and decision-making processes.

In this presentation, I will reflect on how these unquantifiable side tasks contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities of preventive care. By sharing examples of these experiences, I aim to highlight the often-unacknowledged but critical role that "other duties as assigned" play in shaping the development of emerging professionals in conservation. Ultimately, these tasks, though small in scope, have had a profound impact on my ability to think critically, adapt swiftly, and collaborate effectively—skills that are essential in a successful conservation career.