Preventive conservation: an editorial about the current state of the profession

What is it about?

This special issue of the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation on collection care grew out of an initiative of AIC’s Collection Care Network to develop resources that both represent and assist the range of professionals who are committed to “the critical importance of preventive conservation as the most effective means of promoting the long-term preservation of cultural property” (Guidelines for Practice of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works, #20). When reviewed together, the six articles in this issue illustrate a wide range of collection care initiatives, show how expanding access and developing partnerships can help meet collection care goals, and highlight the creative solutions that can manifest through these approaches.  Preventive conservation became an established concept with the publication of The Museum Environment in the 1970s; at that time the core areas of concerns were framed. Over the subsequent decades, groups of practitioners and researchers developed those ideas into the form we recognize today. Concepts first mooted in the 1970s were developed into models and practice by the late 1990s. Since then, conservators and allied professionals have challenged, tested, and evolved these concepts, adding depth and offering improvements in practice.

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Why is it important?

The whole edition of the journal show us how far we have come as a profession. They also point to our future. Throughout this issue, we hear about working with students to test theory, enact practice, and to challenge orthodoxy. Students represent the way forward and if they are engaged in work such as those projects represented here, they will carry forward evidence-based, critical preventive conservation that is inclusive and practical. If the new generation of conservators and allied professionals answer this charge, we can hope in another decade or so to see the changes that they have brought and be confident that cultural heritage will be better for their efforts.