Boost the Conservation Signal! by Suzy Morgan, for EMG FAIC News 10
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January 2015 Vol. 40, No. 1 Inside From the Executive Director 2 AIC News 5 Annual Meeting 9 Boost the Conservation Signal! By Suzy Morgan, for EMG FAIC News 10 JAIC News 12 The uses of social media for communicating and outreach have been widely covered in the library, museum, and popular literature. Has New Publications 12 social media just been a fad, or does it have real implications for the future of conservation outreach and the changing public perception People 13 of conservators? A few recent social media “events” have shown that COLUMN conservators and allied professionals have found new and creative SPONSORED In Memoriam 13 ways to successfully utilize these tools. Many of our allies in other BY EM G professions, such as libraries, archives, and museums, have already Conservation Training Programs 15 been using these tools to promote their existing blogs and websites, and communicate Specialty Group Columns 16 with their readers in a more informal and colloquial way. This article will describe how cultural heritage professionals have been using these tools to increase awareness of Network Columns 23 conservation activities and preservation issues, both within and without the field. Grants & Fellowships 24 #5DaysOfPreservation and Going Viral In July 2014, Kevin Driedger, the author of the blog Library Preservation 2, started a social Courses, Conferences, & Seminars 25 media project that he dubbed #5DaysOfPreservation. He described his intent for the project in an email sent to ALA’s Preservation Awareness Discussion Group list: Positions, Internships & Fellowships 29 “The activities that fall under the umbrella of preservation are vast, growing, and often have characteristics specific to individuals and institutions. I am interested in get- ting a better picture of what this broadening landscape looks like, and I’m hoping others are too. Don’t forget to... “Therefore, to create this picture I am inviting all who are willing and able to take at least one picture each day during the week of July 14-18 of what preservation looks like for you that day.” • Register now! Money-saving early registration rate for the Images were connected and shared by using the hashtag #5DaysOfPreservation; Annual Meeting ends on submissions came in via Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. I interviewed Kevin about 2/28/2015—and reserve your his project, how he came up with the idea, and the end results. The initial idea was spot on one of our fantastic tours. spawned when he noticed a distinct lack of pictures in an otherwise well-written preservation management book that did a very good job of describing the diversity • Renew your membership! of preservation work. At the same time he was also reading a book about visual story- Membership Dues for 2015 are telling and the importance of using images to convey a story. He decided to create a due by Jan. 31, 2015. simple tool for people working in preservation to visually share images of their daily work. His goal for the project was to create something that had a really low barrier • Nominate a colleague for a to involvement using tools that most people use every day. Initially, he wasn’t sure if position or award, including the anyone was going to participate, but in the end, the project was highly successful and specialty group elections. Kevin said he received very positive feedback about it. Over 300 images were shared via the #5DaysOfPreservation hashtag, and are archived on the project’s Tumblr at • Review and comment on http://5daysofpreservation.tumblr.com, illustrating everything from digitization efforts the new proposed bylaws at to pest management and control. www.conservation-us.org/ bylawsdiscussion Boost the Conservation Signal continues on page 3 From the Executive Director AIC NEWS AIC News (ISSN 1060-3247) is published bi-monthly by the American Institute for AIC is off to a great start in 2015, as we launch the Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works, 1156 Connecting to Collections Care Online Community 15th Street, NW, Ste. 320, Washington, D.C. 20005; (C2C Care), an initiative administered by FAIC with 202-452–9545; Fax: 202-452–9328; the assistance of the AIC Collection Care Network. We [email protected] thank the Institute of Museum and Library Services www.conservation-us.org (IMLS) for providing funds that will be available over a two-year period for FAIC to operate and enhance Send address changes to: this active and highly successful online community, AIC News an outgrowth of IMLS’s “Connecting to Collections” 1156 15th Street, NW, Suite 320 initiative to help small collecting institutions obtain reli- Washington, D.C. 20005 able information about caring for their collections. CCN members are on the new C2C Care advisory board, and Opinions expressed in AIC News are those of the we are excited to see the fruits of their efforts in planning contributors and not official statements of AIC. new webinars and answering queries in the community forum. Responsibility for the materials/methods described C2C Care offers online discussions, resource files, web links, and 50 archived webinar herein rests solely with the contributors. recordings on a wide range of topics, all without charge to the user. Under the leadership of Heritage Preservation, over 5,700 people have created accounts on the site, which Deadline for March editorial submissions allow them to post to the discussion boards, and 6,450 have registered for online courses. ([email protected]): The community augments FAIC and AIC’s growing digital presence and provides a February 1, 2015. forum for us to reach the broader collection care community. I am grateful to all the AIC We reserve the right to edit for brevity and clarity. members who, by sharing their expertise, have already or will be helping AIC ensure that this valued resource continues to evolve in support of its users. ADVERTISING In addition to C2C Care, AIC and its Foundation have a great many other projects AIC accepts position-available ads only from equal and initiatives moving forward in the coming year. Keep up to date on all our activities opportunity employers. All position ads must by taking advantage of the range of communications tools we offer. And, please do conform to the standards for equal opportunity consider ways you can contribute—we welcome your involvement. employment. AIC does not necessarily endorse the With thanks and all best wishes for the coming year! products advertised in nor position announcements posted in AIC News. We encourage job seekers —Eryl P. Wentworth, Executive Director, ewentworth [at] conservation-us.org to conduct their own research to determine if the advertised position is right for them. The cost of Internships and Fellowships, Positions Available, and Classified Ads are: $1.05 per word for members and $2.15 per word for nonmembers; the minimum charge is $75. The cost of display ads is: 1/6 page $215; 1/3 page $360; 1/2 page $445; 2/3 page $570; full page $695. Deadlines for advertising copy are: February 10, April 10, June 10, August 10, October 10, and December 10. All ads should be submitted to Ruth Seyler at [email protected]. AIC NEWS STAFF Lisa Goldberg, Editor Eryl P. Wentworth, Managing Editor Sheila Cummins, Editor, New Publications Bonnie Naugle, Production Editor Ruth Seyler, Marketing Director Eric Pourchot, Institutional Advancement Director © Copyright 2015. AIC News cannot be reproduced in its entirety without permission from AIC. Individual articles may be reproduced if permission has been granted by the owner of copyright and proper citation attributed. 2 AIC NEWS, January 2015 BOOST THE CONSERVATION SIGNAL Boost the Conservation Signal continued from front cover What’s a Hashtag? Show the Conservator in Conservation “The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark In my conversation with Kevin, we discussed how social media keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically can engage the public and allied professionals by showing pres- by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.” ervation and conservation on a much more “human” scale, by (source: https://support.twitter.com/ revealing the “conservator in conservation” (http://librarypreser- articles/49309-using-hashtags-on-twitter) vation2.blogspot.com/2011/11/finding-conservator-in-conser- On many social media sites—such as Tumblr, Twitter, Flickr, and vation.html). This is something that is difficult to do in academic Facebook—hashtags are automatically turned into a link to a page conservation literature, but is integral to social media, as well as to that gathers all content created by other users who tagged it with blogs and personal websites. After the first few days of the project, the same hashtag. Some sites and mobile device applications even have a feature that will let you “follow” certain hashtags, and Kevin specifically asked participants to share more pictures of alert you whenever new content with that hashtag has appeared. themselves (“post pics of the people who preserve”), rather than just their collections. An find allies in places beyond the field. For book and paper conser- example of the humaniza- vators, this could mean following the accounts of special collec- tion of a heavily stereotyped tions librarians, archivists, or digital preservationists. Outreach is and mysterious profession a two-way street. The larger issues in these allied professions can can be found in the sciences, and the explosion of popularity for have a direct impact on our work as conservators; similarly, those science communicators across various types of media. Particularly in allied professions can also become advocates for conservation notable examples are Emily Grasile, currently the Field Museum’s by sharing our concerns through their own networks. When we, “Chief Curiosity Correspondent,” Cara Santa Maria, Joe Hanson, as conservators, publicly express an interest in the work of our and of course Neil Degrasse Tyson.