A major function of cultural property, suggested Mr. Ogden, is its role in preserving cultural stability by transmitting values. Others agreed that for the public, authenticity has drawing power. For most people, he pointed out, personal objects such as letters, jewelry, and photographs have the greatest meaning in their original form. In a similar way, people do not want substitutions for authentic cultural objects or places. Still, interest in the original does not necessarily mean an appreciation of efforts to preserve it.
Conservation remains an invisible process to the public.
Museums have visitor education programs but these typically lack a conservation component, remarked Ross Merrill, Chief of Conservation at the National Gallery of Art and NIC Board Chairman. The same is true at the nation's historic buildings and archaeological sites. Visitor tours are not used as a vehicle for educating the public about preservation, in part because the guides themselves know little about conservation. There are times when the broad public has rallied in support of a preservation effort, perhaps the most notable instance being in the mid-1980s when the American public contributed tens of millions of dollars toward the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. But the Statue's preservation effort in some ways was the exception that proves the rule.