The Ultimate Preservation Organisation List

And another French/English event coming up!

Happy 2024 to everyone! Yes, it’s February - funny how time flies by, isn’t it?

Let’s get straight to the meaty stuff I have for you!

A new French practice event

In December last year, I ran the first pilot for the French-practice group for Gallery-Libraries-Archives-Museum (GLAM) folks. Given that we had it on a Wednesday at 3pm ET in December, of all months, I was pretty glad to see over 30 people show up! Since then, we’ve had a few more people sign up through the survey, which is still open in case this interests you.

I was completely surprised to see a Conservator-Restorer from the Democratic Republic of Congo show up that day (speaking perfect first language French, of course), and I am very excited to have secured her as a speaker for our second event, which is coming up this Feb 20th at 5pm ET.

A new resource with preservation organisations

At some random point last year it occurred to me I wanted a list of preservation organisations… not just the big typical ones that are new finds for emerging professionals like ICOM, ICCROM, and AIC, for example, but all of them. I got a bit greedy, I guess. Why? I was reading some papers as part of the technical committee for the IIC conference in Lima coming up this year, and I was finding out about small regional groups and organisations that arose during the pandemic, etc.

And I thought… these groups sound amazing! I wish more people knew about them so they could grow! And then it hit me… why not make a list? A massive list. If it worked with the All Masters programs for Conservation, why not this too?

Let’s put the Society of American Archivists next to the Network of European Museum Organisations, next to the X group for paper conservators in Bali, and the National Librarian Association from country Y, etc. Who are we and where do we hang out? Let’s make finding each other easier!

So I’ve written it all up in a quick new article and linked the start of the table.

I say the “start” of the table because there are only about 70 groups in there. If I get a lot of responses, I will do what we did for the last Masters table and open a copy for everyone to put in their org. data. This is very exciting to me, so I hope everyone finds value in it and wants to contribute!

Networking works

As some of you may know, I switched countries from Peru to Canada in January 2023. I quit my full-time job in October 2022 to focus on preparing for this transfer and spent many months working on my website, social media, portfolio, CV, and this newsletter.

I even wrote an article (published Nov 10th, 2022!) about my thoughts and perceived challenges embarking on this switch. It was sort of like being an emerging conservator all over again except with no papers on top of that. Looking back on that now, it’s really something to see where I am today! Maybe my next article will be an update on that old one.

I will happily announce now that I have a new position as Conservator | Customer Success Manager with Conserv (and I also write the blogs there!). If you are a Conserv customer with any issue, I will probably be the first person to look into it and try to help you out - please be nice lol! I’m trying my best. There’s a lot to learn when you go from a museum conservation and collections management post to a position that requires hardware and software troubleshooting as well as inventory and support ticket management! Still, it’s a lot of fun learning about the challenges related to environmental monitoring in different types of institutions as well as the nitty-gritty technical details of monitoring.

Here’s another thing I’ve learned - when you ask a company for help or information, they will open a support ticket for you on their customer database management system to keep track of you (and all the other people with issues too).

When you feel your problem is resolved, the loveliest, kindest, sweetest thing you can do to someone in customer service is say the words: you can close my ticket! I tell you, that has become music to my ears because it’s one less issue to keep track of - and some of these issues drag on for days or weeks or months! You will also become a favourite customer with me immediately because I will know you know how the system works and that you respect my time. 💝

Anyway, I think that’s all for me now. I learned to make Gingerbread houses last year (gluten-free), and we are itching to make another batch right now, like right right now - not the house, just the cookies. Let me know if you want the recipe too, this thing was delicious. And that’s a Christmas Howling Wolf. Just because.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Angelica

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