C2C Care New Tools of the Trade Assisting cultural heritage institutions perform their daily work
Channel: AIC & FAIC
Date: 15/12/2021

This webinar was co-presented by Lesley A. Langa, PhD, of NovaKultura Consulting, Kate McEnroe, Associate Conservator of Archaeological Materials at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Anne Kingery-Schwartz, Principal Objects Conservator, Kingery Conservation LLC. The presenters will provide an overview of two distinct measurement tools they have developed to assist small and medium-sized cultural heritage institutions perform their daily work.

Dr. Langa will present on the Collections Care Index Tool – a self-assessment survey that allows collections staff to see where they are meeting basic collections care standards and regularly monitoring collections care practice. Users should be able to self-evaluate their work and produce valuable information for leadership and staff on how well their organization is performing collections care. Participants are encouraged to view the tool on her website: https://www.collectionscareindex.com/ prior to the webinar.

Ms. McEnroe and Ms. Kingery-Schwartz will then preview an assessment tool that evaluates all aspects of health and safety within an institution. It covers a wide variety of topics providing users with the ability to track their progress towards preventing incidents like workplace injury and fires, as well as identifying hazards present within institutions’ collections. Designed for historic houses, the tool can also be more broadly applied to small and medium institutions and is intended to assist those that may not have ready access to safety professionals. The survey tool will be previewed during the webinar, but two useful health and safety resources in advance of the webinar are the American Institute for Conservation’s (AIC) Health and Safety Wiki and the AIC Health and Safety Forum. You do not need to be an AIC member to use either of these. Health and Safety Tool: http://www.culturalheritage.org/hazardsurvey

Both presentations will provide additional resources for where to go once evaluations are completed and new information is needed for remedy. Each tool will be presented for 30 minutes, leaving 30mins for shared questions and tool demonstration.