Volume 13, Number 7
Nov 1989

Training for Archive Conservators

Recognizing the urgent need for more well-trained archives conservators, the graduate Art Conservation Department at Buffalo State College is studying ways in which that need might be met. In July, Associate Professor Cathleen Baker was awarded a NEH planning grant to look into the development of a masters level curriculum for the training of archives conservators. Sharing the responsibility for the project is the department Director, Professor F. Christopher Tahk.

In early August, a panel of national experts in archives administration and conservation met at Buffalo State College for three days to define the role of archives conservators and to draft a curriculum for their training. The panelists were: Larry Hackman and Maria Holden, New York State Archives; Carolyn Morrow and Merrily Smith, National Preservation Program Office, Library of Congress; Norvell M.M. Jones and Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, National Archives and Records Administration; James Stroud, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin; Howard Lowell, Oklahoma Department of Libraries; and Paul Conway, Society of American Archivists.

The panel meeting proved very productive and led to many ideas, suggestions, and recommendations. The deliberations of the panel are now being reviewed by the project personnel in consultation with the panelists. A final summary report which will include a proposed graduate archives conservation curriculum with recommendations will be published by the fall of 1990. Copies of the report will be available from Professor Cathleen Baker, NEH Project; Art Conservation Department, Rockwell Hall 230; Buffalo State College; 1300 Elmwood Avenue; Buffalo, NY 14222-1095.