Preservation and Conservation Assessments, Surveys, and Evaluations can be incredibly helpful collections care tools – if you know how to use them! Too often cultural heritage organizations receive these useful documents only to let them sit on a shelf and gather dust. This course will help you to understand the different types of assessments you may have done on your collections, and, most importantly, how to implement the recommendations made and move these documents from a binder on the shelf into real life applications. In this four part series, presenters will discuss what is included in a general preservation assessment, other types of useful collections care related assessments, using an assessment for grant writing and fundraising, and creating an implementable preservation plan.
Course Coordinator: Samantha Forsko, Preservation Specialist, Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA)
This course was originally presented as a 4-webinar live course
between July 10 and August 7, 2019.
The webinars were recorded and are now available on-demand,
along with the original course handouts, quizzes and assignments.
Course assignments are for self-study purposes only and will not be reviewed by instructors.
The Credly badge is no longer available for this course.
Fee: Free!!
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Week 1: Conducting a General Preservation Assessment
In this webinar, we will describe general preservation assessments and how they are carried out including, what is covered in this type of assessment, the methodology for conducting such an assessment, and the pros and cons of conducting an assessment in house versus hiring and working with a consultant. Finally, we will present funding options for assessments and how your institution can obtain funding.
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Week 2: Additional Preservation and Conservation Assessments with Dyani Feige, Director of Preservation Services and Heather Hendry, Paper Conservator, CCAHA. Even though the general preservation assessment is important, and usually the first type of assessment an institution might undertake, there are many other helpful surveys that a cultural heritage organization should consider. In this webinar, participants will learn about three different types of assessments in detail: a risk assessment, which is typically useful for developing an emergency planning; a digital preservation assessment, helpful for understanding the digital needs of your collection; and a collections survey, which examines object level needs of a collection.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Week 3: What To Do With Your Assessment: Fundraising and Grant Writing with Lee Price, Director of Development, CCAHA. An assessment report may recommend actions that require funding to become a reality. This webinar will discuss using assessments as supporting documents in grant applications and how to fundraise and make the case for collections care initiatives. We will discuss what big funders, such as the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), are looking for in applications, and how recommendations from assessments can be used to strengthen your proposals.
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Week 4: What To Do With Your Assessment: Creating a Preservation Plan After institutions receive an assessment, there will be numerous recommendations that need to be implemented. A Preservation Plan is an essential institutional document that will help your institution to thoughtfully and carefully chart a course for the preservation of your collections for three to five years. Assessments help to lay the groundwork to creating such a document. This webinar will provide guidance on how to create a Preservation Plan, and show participants how recommendations from assessments can be made implementable by creating goals, objectives, and mapping strategies to attain your goals.
