AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.

Are you a conservator or preservation technician working alone or in a small team, managing all aspects of preservation and/or conservation for both special and circulating library and archival collections? Do you find yourself navigating these responsibilities with limited resources or support? Join us for a lunch session to address these unique challenges that so many in our field experience, explore practical solutions for building and sustaining robust preservation programs, and continue to build your network.

In June 2024 a group of five “Lone Conservators” working in university libraries began meeting informally on Zoom every two weeks after connecting at AIC’s Annual Conference in Salt Lake City. We come from different parts of the world and we share a common experience: each of us is tasked with handling multiple roles, as our institutions lack the budget for fully staffed Preservation/Conservation Departments. While some university libraries are creating preservation or collections care positions, these roles are often filled by just one conservator tasked with overseeing entire programs. As a result, what were once well-staffed preservation efforts are being reduced to smaller teams, leaving fewer people to manage large collections that continue to deteriorate. Over the months of meeting we are finding great support in one another by creating a cross-institutional department meeting, an active Discord channel, and a fileshare where we exchange helpful documentation and protocols. Our hope is to expand this network and connect with more conservators in similar roles, inviting them to join us and benefit from the support we’ve found in one another.

This session serves as an extension of themes we discuss in our bi-monthly meetings and focuses on:

• Building Networks and Sharing Resources: Strategies for connecting with local and online cultural heritage communities and sharing best practices and resources.
• Overcoming Institutional Challenges: Effective communication to advocate for preservation needs, change institutional culture around preservation, and manage with limited budgets and staff.
• Making the most of Resources: Prioritizing tasks, finding cost-efficient preservation methods and materials, setting up functional labs, and developing tools for management and collaboration.
• Documentation and Policies: Creating and maintaining comprehensive documentation and developing effective preservation policies.
• Professional Development: Opportunities for training and career growth to enhance skills and advance in the field.

Our group has grown already and we aim to open up this bi-monthly virtual meeting place for anyone who would benefit from joining. We continue to develop ideas, come up with ways to advocate for one another within our institutions, and organize as a group. We're excited to share our progress and discuss your thoughts during this lunch session!

Our panel will feature four professionals – Amanda Richards (University of Tennessee), Carrie Smith (Tulane University), Fleur van der Woude (University of Arizona), and Nora Bloch (Virginia Commonwealth University) – who navigate these challenges and will share their insights and stories. Attendees will be encouraged to participate in the conversation, share their experiences, and collaborate on solutions. Together, we can inspire each other and strengthen the field of library and archive preservation and conservation.

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.
  
  

The lunch session is designed to delve into the fundamental aspects of multiband (MBI), multispectral (MSI), and hyperspectral (HSI) imaging in a welcoming setting that invites learning, inquiry, and exchange. The first part of the session will include an invited presentation on light-matter interaction focusing on the phenomena that provides the foundation for MBI, MSI and HSI. The second part of the session shifts from phenomena to technique and will include two invited presenters to cover MBI and imaging spectroscopy (MSI and HSI). The presenters will define these techniques and their principles of operation, highlighting advantages and limitations of the techniques with case studies of applications and media. Presenters will also touch on instrumentation and requirements for setup, calibration, processing, and analysis. Other important topics include the knowledge required to acquire and interpret spectral data and variations in equipment setups and corresponding general price points. Each of the presentations will be followed by time for Q&A and a resource document will be assembled to share with participants. The session will be recorded as an intended resource for the community.

Presenters:

• Kate Dooley, Imaging Scientist, National Gallery of Art: Light-Matter Interaction
• Jiuan Jiuan Chen, Assoc. Professor, Buffalo State University: Multiband Imaging
• Olivia Kuzio, Assistant Scientist, Getty Conservation Institute: Imaging Spectroscopy (Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging)

The session is continuing to be co-developed with the invited speakers and representatives from Imaging Working Group (IWG), Book and Paper Specialty Group (BPG), Photographic Materials Group (PMG), and Research and Technical Studies Specialty Group (RATS).

The lunch session fits into a larger imaging program at the Annual Meeting that will include a joint specialty session looking at case studies of applications and interpretation (BPG, PMG, RATS), and a concurrent general session (pulling together a range of media, techniques, and applications). The lunch will be held at the beginning of the conference to lay a foundation for the joint and concurrent general sessions.

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.
  
  

The work of art, architectural and archeological conservators is frequently covered in commercial media like The New Yorker, Atlantic, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Yet only a handful of conservators have been actively writing our stories for general audiences. That is changing now, and this panel aims to show some of the strategies that some practitioners are using to communicate our ideas. The goal of such writing is to bring visibility to our profession and to ensure that what is told about us is accurate as well as interesting. In popular media we tend to be depicted as either basement-dwelling nitpickers or Indiana Jones style swashbucklers.  But the true elegance of our work, the mindset that goes into our commitments to doing no harm and protecting work for the future, as well as how our approach to repair can be a metaphor for other ways to live in the world, is rarely seen in writing about conservation done by others. This panel will show current writing by five practitioners who regularly promote conservation to general audiences. Each will read from something they have written and describe their goals and approach to writing. Then we will open it to the audience for conversation and discussion. The goal of the panel is to spur our community to more writing and more communication with the world at large.

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.

Join the Architecture Specialty Group (ASG) and Preventive Care Network (PCN) for lunch and an engaging discussion on the intrinsic connection between the care and maintenance of historic buildings and the preventive care of collections. The luncheon will feature panelists exploring the 1992 New Orleans Charter for the Preservation of Historic Structures and Artifacts, considering its impact over the past three decades, and examining how emerging challenges and trends shape its relevance today. This conversation will lay the foundation for a Symposium hosted by ASG and PCN in 2026, dedicated to reflecting and revisiting the Charter.

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.

Art conservation is a field filled with ambiguity, where often there is no single “right” answer to a conservation challenge. This uncertainty can be both frustrating and liberating, especially for students and emerging professionals who are accustomed to clear-cut solutions. In this interactive session, we will explore the role of uncertainty in conservation and how it can be leveraged to foster creativity, critical thinking, and resilience among early-career professionals.

Drawing from my own experiences as a conservator and educator at the University of Delaware, I have observed that many students struggle with the concept of "it depends"—the idea that conservation solutions are rarely definitive and often require careful consideration of context, materials, and ethical implications. This session will feature a collaborative dialogue between myself, current undergraduate and graduate students, recent graduates, and board members from the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN). Together, we will share insights and strategies for embracing uncertainty as a valuable aspect of the conservation process and provide reassurance that this feeling is universal, sharing helpful coping mechanisms.

The session will begin with brief presentations from me, students, and recent graduates on their personal experiences with uncertainty in their academic and early professional journeys. These presentations will highlight the challenges they faced and the strategies they developed to navigate the lack of clear answers in conservation practice. Following these presentations, we will break into smaller discussion groups, ideally with a mix of conservators in different career stages, each facilitated by a panelist, to delve deeper into specific topics such as decision-making in treatment proposals, the role of collaboration in managing uncertainty, and the ways in which educators can support students in developing confidence amidst ambiguity.

The goal of this session is to create an open and supportive environment where participants can exchange ideas, share personal experiences, and develop a toolkit for navigating the uncertainties inherent in art conservation. By the end of the session, participants will have gained new perspectives on how to approach uncertainty not as a hindrance but as an opportunity for growth and innovation.

This collaborative session aims to provide a platform for emerging conservation professionals to connect, learn from one another, and build a community that embraces the complexities of our field. In doing so, we hope to inspire a shift in how uncertainty is perceived—transforming it from a source of anxiety into a catalyst for creativity and professional development.

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.

• $35 registration fee
• Adding this event to your schedule does not guarantee you a space. You must add it to your registration via the above "Add to Registration" button.

Traditionally, cultural institutions have been dedicated to collecting in perpetuity. To accommodate this mission, we as conservators have prioritized extending the physical life of an object for as long as possible by reducing perceived risks at all costs. Several factors are driving us to question its sustainability and re-evaluate this approach:

• Museums continue to acquire, often without providing the additional resources needed to store and care for their growing collections. This leaves us strained to do the best we can under ever-increasing workloads. 
• We are grappling with how collections reflect social and political reckonings. In doing so, we are making efforts to better connect with the cultures that artifacts originated from and the communities that our institutions serve. 
• We are living and working through a climate crisis and are now acutely aware of the negative impact our actions, policies, and procedures may have on the global environment and its cultural heritage.

Four speakers will share their thoughts on how we can build a more sustainable future for collections by focusing on and honoring context, accessibility, and community in our work: Pejuta Haka Win Red Eagle, an Oglala Lakota & Wahpekute and Wahpetunwan Dakota winyan and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is a Curatorial Fellow in Anthropology at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Jane Henderson teaches at Cardiff University’s BSc in Conservation and MSc in Conservation Practice programs and is the Secretary General of IIC.  Jessica Walthew is an objects conservator at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Dr. Joelle Wickens is Assistant Professor of preventive conservation in the Department of Art Conservation at the University of Delaware.