 Good afternoon, everyone. This is Susan Manning from Learning Times, and I'd like to officially welcome you again to the fifth of our series of Connecting to Collections webinars. And it's always a thrill to rejoin this group and to see who's coming in from all over North America. And you've got the business of chatting down pat. You can use that area not only to say hello to your colleagues, but also to ask questions throughout these presentations. We will hold questions until the very end for our presenters to get to, but feel free to ask them there so they're in the archive and we can pull them out and then forward them later. Also, if for some reason you have some need for technical assistance, don't hesitate to email us. Try to be as detailed as possible so we know the nature of your problem as we try to troubleshoot with you. We are recording these webinars, and if you go back through the main page in the way that you found us, you will get to a recording area and an archival area for each of the presentations. So be sure to check out the work that's been done previously and review what's happening today. And with that, I am going to introduce Larry Rieger from Heritage Preservation, IMLS, Heritage Preservation, and AASLH is, the three of them are sponsoring this webinar series and we want to thank them. And Larry, would you like to say a few words? Sure, thanks Susan. To everyone, I'm pleased to welcome you on behalf of Heritage Preservation and the Association of State and Local History. Our organizations have had the privilege of working closely with the Institute of Museum and Library Services on its Connecting to Collections Initiative. You will note on your screen, we have two polls, which you'll see a series of these. And the first one is, we would like to know what part of the country that you're joining us from. And the second is, what kind of institution are you affiliated with? So if you could start filling those out, we would be grateful. Each of our speakers in differing ways have a considerable amount of experience in how to use collections care to reach out to the public and interest them in what we do to take care of collections in our various institutions. Whether it's conserving or rehousing an artifact or document or providing proper environmental controls in our storage area and exhibitions. I'm confident that if you adopt, adapt, or develop other outreach projects as a result of this webinar, that you will, one, increase your visitorship. Two, gain new members. And three, find that it can be a tool to assist you in securing new and increased financial support. I'm now pleased to introduce Mamie Bittner, who is IMLS's Deputy Director of Policy, Planning, Research and Communications, who will give you a brief overview of IMLS's Connecting to Collections Initiative and some brief background about our presenters. Mamie, take it over. Thanks so much, Larry. And it's a pleasure to be on this call. I have participated in a couple of the webinars, but I haven't had the opportunity to actually greet you all and give a little introduction. And it's a real thrill to do this. I think that these webinars have been just wonderful and help to really expand and continue the conversation that was started with the Connecting to Collections Initiative. So I know that many of you are returning, and so returning webinar participants, and so maybe familiar with some of this, but I wanted to just direct you to information about the initiative that's available on the IMLS website. And this is really a very rich resource of multimedia as well as information about grants and online resources that can help you care for collections. So I encourage you to visit when you have a chance. And I want to tell you just a little bit about IMLS. Our purpose is to build the capacity of museums and libraries to serve the public. And we have three major goals, and the first one is sustaining cultural heritage and knowledge. We do that to enhance learning and innovation, and we believe very strongly that the power of our museums and libraries and archives are really dependent upon people like you who are the people who are working in these institutions and making them better every day. So to start off, actually I'm gonna go back, to start off, we have a poll. And Susan, I think we'll put up the poll. The poll is asking, have you or your institution been a participant in the Connecting to Collections initiative? So is the poll up there? It is up there, and I think what I'll do is I'll move this particular one over to the side. For some reason, my mouth is stuck. Here we go, I'm gonna move this one over here, and we can go forward with that, with the next slide while we ask them about the programs that they've participated in. How's that work for you? That's great, so this first poll is like a yes or no, have you been involved in the initiative? And then the second poll, which is now, I guess, also in front of you, is asking what kind of participation have you had? So is it possible to move the poll so it's not in front of that slide or? Well, I can try to shorten it up a little bit. That's, okay, I hope everyone can still read that. But this initiative has been going on for a few years now. And the slide that's there now is showing all of the different elements and moving parts of this initiative, which started with this National Summit, and then launched a four-city tour. We also had an international meeting at the Salzburg Global Seminar, and then a variety of grant opportunities from the American Heritage Preservation Grant, which was an opportunity that we did in partnership with Bank of America. Statewide planning grants, which we've had every state and many of the territories participated in. We've also given five implementation grants that were building on those planning grants. We're most proud of the bookshelf project, which disseminated nearly 3,000 of the bookshelves across the nation and around the world. And two, I believe, raising the bar workshops. But one of the things I think has just been so terrific about this initiative is our partners, Heritage Preservation and AASLH, and also just the keeping the conversation going and keeping this community of practice in touch with each other and providing opportunities for networking. So you are all great resources for each other, our participants on the phone call. And we have three really wonderful presenters today, and I'd like to take a minute to introduce them to you. We'll start with Amber Ker-Allison. Hi, Amber. Hello. Amber is a painting conservator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's London Center. And the London Center makes conservation visible and accessible to the public. If you've visited the Smithsonian, you know that anyone can go and take a peek of what's happening in the London Center and see conservators in action. Well, obviously this Smithsonian is a much larger institution than most of you are from. Amber has spent lots of time interacting with the public and learning what's effective when trying to stimulate interest in collections' care. And she'll share what she has learned with you. Susan Blakeney. Hi, Susan. Hi, everybody. Susan's a conservator in private practice in upstate New York. For many years, she's worked directly with a very small museum in Skinny Atlas, New York on conserving their collection of paintings. Her work has involved not just the actual conservation, but also, and more to the point today, fundraising and generating public interest in the collection. Much of what they did could be done in your own institutions. And I know you'll learn a lot from Susan. And finally, we have Beth Tice. Hi, Beth. Hi. She is at the Baylor University Library. She conducted public outreach activities last spring in connection with the American Library Association's Preservation Week. Her observations will be of interest to all of you who want to engage the public. And our tips are helpful, whether you are doing outreach as part of Preservation Week or any other time of year. So welcome to you all. OK. And with that, we are going to take one presentation and after another. And we're actually going to start off with Amber. So Amber, you're in charge. Well, thank you for that introduction and for the opportunity to participate in the Connecting to Collections webinar series. I'll begin with an overview of the outreach programs at the Lunder Conservation Center and then offer some suggestions on how these programs could be adapted to suit the needs and resources of smaller institutions. The Lunder Conservation Center, for those who don't know, is a floor-to-ceiling glass walled facility that enables the public to view conservators working on artifacts from the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. The facility is situated in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, located in Washington, D.C. The design of the Lunder Conservation Center provides the unique opportunity for the public to see firsthand how these collections are cared for. The self-guided tours through the center include educational kiosks with touchscreen technology, and the kiosks provide treatment videos, photographs, and a conservation tool menu. We also have wall didactic that are used to educate the visitors and used as speaking points during tours of the center. We have a 40-foot-long video wall that provides a series of educational segments on collection care. All one needs to do is place their hand on the wall, and what will come up is the series of different videos, saving our treasures, save outdoor sculpture, and hearing from the professionals to really engage the public and let them learn a little bit about more conservation and the preservation of cultural heritage. We provide weekly public tours every Wednesday for behind-the-scenes descriptions of current projects, and conservators will often come out to interact with the groups and answer questions that they may have. We also organize particular tours for groups from the Girl Scouts to NASA Rocket Scientists, so we try to accommodate to about any group that approaches us. And our educational programs are designed for middle school to college-age students working in collaboration with the teachers and professors to offer informative programs and engaging projects that relate to the current curriculum for the students. And if we can bring up the first of the three poll questions I'd like to ask, I'd like to see what educational programs for collections care are currently being offered at your facilities for those of our listeners, and please choose as many as may apply for you here in this category. Is this the one for...? I may have pulled up the wrong question. Yeah, we want the educational one. There's another one up there for a little bit. Yeah, we'll let them go ahead and answer that, and we'll bring that one back. But here's the educational program. There we go, yes. Bring that one up, that'd be great. And if we could put it to the side a little bit, what I'm going to do is come back to these polls with the answers for you all to see in just a little bit. So we can put those to the side. Those are over here. Keep answering. Yep, please, keep answering. Sorry, my mouth just got sticky again. That's okay. So the other things at the Lunder Conservation also include the gallery tours and the use of storyboards to discuss the conservation treatments of works on view in the galleries. We found this to be an excellent way of engaging the public in an object and giving them what they feel is sort of like insider information, and connecting them to it with knowledge that few others have about the conservation and care of that particular artifact. We also provide free monthly conservation clinics where the members of the public can make appointments to bring in their artifacts and fill it with a conservator to receive professional advice and reference materials on how to actually care for their collections. And since we've already got one of those polls up on the social media using new media sources, I'd like to bring up that second one on the different types of what forms of social network might be most effective for your facility. So we could probably close off those other two polls if you want to for a moment and come back to those answers The Lunder Conservation Center engages with the public through the use of new media and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook as a means of updating and informing our fans on the progress of treatment, different research going on in the labs, public programs, lectures, and news on conservation and cultural heritage issues. This includes using new media sources, online publications and blogs to raise awareness, educate and advocate for conservation and collection care issues. Now it's understood that not all collections have the resources and program funds available that we have through the Smithsonian and that's another key reason why the Lunder Conservation Center was developed. To increase awareness and educate the public on these issues so that our visitors contemplate the resources and needs of museums and collections in their hometowns. A popular question we ask our visitors is do you know if the historic society or museum that you have a conservator or collection care manager on staff to care for the cultural heritage in your community? Most of the Lunder programs I have highlighted can be adapted to fit the needs of libraries and small collections. Let's take a few moments to step through and consider how that could be done. First, I must emphasize the importance of connecting the public to your collection. Finding the stories that interest and engage them with the cultural material in your collection as suggested by Debbie Hess Norris and many of the previous presenters in the series cultivating the public's interest providing a common link between the individual and the collection builds their invested interest in the care and preservation of the collection and is a vital element to fundraising. Our gallery talks and tours have shown us that providing details on conservation treatments makes the artwork more accessible to our visitors. They learn about materials, construction preservation issues and resources needed to care for the artifacts. They understand the labor, time and skills that go into caring for the collection and they relate to the artifacts more directly. They don't have to know the art movement or theories surrounding the work to feel they understand it. They're able to access it at many levels of knowledge and appreciate the importance of the resources needed to preserve it. When budgets and resources are limited collaboration becomes an essential tool in the success of outreach activities and many of these are partnerships that are innovative within your regional community. Some ideas would include inviting local artisans to provide demonstrations on their working methods and this could be from book binding to quilt making. The public program opens the door to your facility to meet a local artist learn more about their craft and methods and can be used to highlight items in your collection and the challenges of preserving these artifacts for future generations to see and learn from. Ask a conservator to give a lecture on family treasures such as quilts or photographs. Connect the theme of the talk to your collection so the audience understands the preservation challenges your institution faces while learning more about caring for their own collections. The conservator introduces their services to the community, the community benefits from their knowledge and the awareness needs of the collection are raised. Collaborate with regional conservation groups to sponsor conservation clinics or to provide a service to the community. These groups, if you can consider them, these regional groups are often looking for facilities to host their monthly meetings at and these meetings tend to include guest speakers for lectures open to the public. If your facility has the space to sponsor a meeting and usually they only range in size of about 20 to 35 people, you'd be providing a lecture program for your public while establishing a relationship with the regional conservation community. These regional groups also often sponsor annual angels projects where volunteers come from the organization to the assistance of small collections and libraries for a day long project such as rehousing a portion of the collection or providing a collection survey. And these preservation projects are a marvelous opportunity to promote the needs of your collections in the media as they provide incredible photo opportunities and story lines for reporters. Now what I'd like to do, Susan, if we can, is pull back that first pull that back up. And let's take a look at what the results were for that. Would you be able to pull that back up? Oh, I can. We can do the big reveal right here. Yeah, the big reveal. I'll put this in numbers, too. Okay, that's great. Well, it's wonderful to see how many of you are offering internships opportunities for college students. That's incredible. It's a great resource for you. And we see that there are still a number of you that don't have anything at this time, but hopefully we can help you with that once you have the chance to pull them in a little bit. And we've seen those numbers are changing a little bit as some of you are continuing to answer, and that's great. Wonderful. Let's put that to the side for a moment while I continue speaking a little bit about education. Collaborating with the local schools has been a great success for our center. And it is a win-win situation with the students and the teachers that are involved in it. It takes learning out of the classroom and into the real world. And if you don't know where to begin with such collaborations, look to the larger organizations. The major site is one that I've put up here for you to kind of take a look at, but they offer a whole section giving creative project ideas to engage younger audiences in the care and preservation of cultural heritage. They use these major sites and see if they offer any kind of educational ideas that you could kind of capitalize on and reuse and do that outreach to the local school community. Work with regional conservation groups again to create family day events. These are really popular things, such as the one you see here in the National National Conservation Guild. You basically design interactive learning activities, such as reconstructing shattered pots. This is a really popular event at the National Building Museum's annual family day each October. And the people from the guild come in and they offer their time and services to introduce conservation and the care of collections to families through this really interactive event. We're creating didactics, and these don't need to be touchscreen kiosks or professionally designed didactics. Simply using printed images, storyboards, or material samples can go a long way to increasing your audience's experience and understanding. When we give our tours, we often use small material samples and digital printouts to help us talk about treatments and objects. The public enjoys holding these materials and seeing how they work, and you'd be amazed at how intriguing a piece of Tyvek or silicone mold can be to a post-news unfamiliar with them. Center tours around the housekeeping and collection care activities you do in your own institution. Teaching the public about the importance of light levels, environmental conditions, and storage is a fundamental introduction to understanding the needs of your own collection while teaching them how to care for their own heritage. And incorporate collection care strategies into the programs for the collectors who contribute to your collection, providing copies of free literature that is often available at sites like the AIC or other conservation websites, which offers free PDFs for caring for collections. So you can basically take advantage of these resources that are available for free online, or introduce your collectors to them and your audiences. Before I continue, let's take a moment to go back to those other two polls, if we could. The first one on media sources and the second one on social networking sites. Let's see what the big reveal is for these, and for those who didn't get a chance to answer them earlier, please go ahead and answer that as well now. Some people are really using the social networking sites like Facebook is really popular. And websites, of course, and email itself, sending out those announcements to the people who are following you. And let's see, how often does it use? A good number of you are using it often or occasionally with just a few in the Rarely categories. Let's take a look and see how some ways might be really interesting for you to start to use this great resource. It is true that social media sites that many people just don't have the resources, experience or staff to manage, but it's becoming increasingly more important to engage with the public in this medium. It is not going away and everyone you consult with will have their own idea or light bulb inspiration as my graphic is trying to show you here on how to apply this exciting but intimidating resource for some. Let me offer some key points to consider as you venture down this road. First, there are many options out there for engaging with the public using new media and social network sites. Going with the most popular ones may not be the best for your institution so don't force that square peg into the round hole. Yes, we use Twitter and Facebook at Munder, but our Facebook postings feed directly into our Twitter page which reduces having to post separately to each site. And our use of Twitter is slightly unconventional in that our information desks follow our postings to see when a conservator is working in view of the public so they can in turn guide people up to the center of what's going on in real time. So basically when I sit down to clean a painting I'll post something on Facebook or Twitter and say, you know, conservator on the fourth floor cleaning a painting and the information does see that and they tell the public, well go up to the fourth floor right now there's a conservator on view. Be creative with these sites. Sometimes their uses can really surprise you. Select a site that's going to enhance your virtual presence on the web but make sure it's one you can support with the resources and time you have to keep it updated. This is a key point if you want to keep your followers engaged with your site. Borrow news points and postings from other sites to keep your page looking fresh and update. You don't always have to be the one writing the material. As an administrator on several Facebook pages I use daily Google search updates to provide me with the latest news on different topics. Then I repost these articles or news points on the appropriate pages that I'm an administrator on. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes of my day but the pages always have fresh material on them and the followers really quote-unquote like the updates. Here is a particularly useful site administered by Nancy Ravenel, objects conservator from the Shelburne Museum in Vermont and an earlier presenter in this webinar series. I strongly encourage you to take a look at this Wiki site to learn more about the resources and examples of social media and their use in collection care. And I'm sure Nancy would welcome your own examples if you'd like to share them. You can also share your images and stories with sites that be willing to publish them such as the AICS Submit Your Own Story Selection. So if you are working with a conservator they can actually take the story of whatever project they're working on and have it posted on this AICS site so that other people can see it. And this is open to the general public to read so it's a great resource. Or you can become active in contributing information to resource sites such as the Swicapedia Saves Public Art Project and I could spend just 10 minutes talking about this particular site as well as Nancy Ravenel's site but take advantage of them, look at them, see if there's something you can contribute to this broader knowledge that people access. Share your collection care stories with online publications such as Art Daily or Local Newspapers. These sources are often looking for new and fresh stories even if they're small little paragraphs snippets. The first webinar in this series provided excellent insight and suggestions on using these resources to engage the public and support your collection care efforts and for those who missed it I would strongly encourage you to listen to the recording of it as well as the other recordings that have been posted for you. This webinar series has been designed to provide you with the fundamental blocks that can assist you in building the programs needed to care for your collections. Use them, refer back to them and hopefully if we've all done our jobs well some small bit of advice or direction that we're looking for. Now, I know the other two presenters have some excellent bits of knowledge and experience to pass along and so I'm going to pass the baton on to them and rejoin you all during the questions and answer section at the end of the presentation. But I'd like to thank you for your time for inviting me today. Thank you, Amber. And so now we're going to transition to Susan Blakeney's presentation and Susan, you're up and in charge. Okay. Thank you very much for giving this opportunity to talk to you and tell you this interesting story about a grassroots approach that's proven very successful. When I began my business in 1975 I soon realized that the conservation of art and artifacts was almost a secret profession and funding was a major problem. Since then, capturing the public eye to engage and educate the importance of what conservators do has been a mission of mine out of necessity. In addition to treatment services for your staff and your volunteers with consultations and workshops, our lectures to the public will garner interest in your preservation projects and needs. We can also aid fundraising by helping you integrate the fascination of preservation into your exhibits with our documentation. Now for a question. How many of you have ever used a professional conservator? And I think this question is going up right there. And if you do need a conservator can I ask you one? Let me I'm slow on the draw here. I'm going to move this over and I'm going to ask that question. You can just continue to answer as I'm talking maybe. Right. So conservation activities are a mystery to most museum attendees. I have found that the public loves watching this work for small periods of time. Behind the scenes tours and placing conservators on view during treatments are successful to increase both financial and new collection donations by demonstrating active collection maintenance and sound stewardship. So if we can move, yes, thank you. This stabilization treatment of flaking paint on a ladder truck was done onsite at the Glenn Curtis Aviation Museum in Hammonsport, New York. They gave small tours to the visitors to briefly watch us work to promote the project and educate the public about collection maintenance. Here after consolidation with an adhesive, flaking paint is being coaxed back into alignment after softening and relaxing with a hot air tool and a silicone burnisher. In the John D. Barrel Art Gallery collection has been a project of Westlake Conservators since 1977. I published an in-depth account of the first ten years of the project in the AIC 1988 conference pre-prints titled A Conservation Strategy for a Static Non-Funded Collection the John D. Barrel Art Gallery. This terrific success story chronicles a newly lost collection's ongoing preservation tactics that demonstrates a variety of fundraising possibilities. John D. Barrel, a second generation Hudson River School artist, erected a two-room gallery to house this collection of 354 paintings in ornate frames which he gave in trust to the library and the people of Skinny Atlas. The gallery was initially funded with railroad bonds which became worthless soon after the artist's death in 1906. As his style of painting fell out of favor, the collection fell into disrepair due to lack of funding and neglect. In 1977, when I made my first presentation to the library board in charge of the collection, they had no preservation funds and 75% of the collection was unstable in active deterioration flaking. A harsh environment from a long-term leaking roof was the cause and the building had just been restored. Temporary wood storage racks have damaged paintings. The first step in managing preservation of any large collection is a condition survey of the collection. Surveys are typically funded by grants and provide an opportunity for a professional conservator to examine every work and write brief condition notes for a future benchmark. Assisting staff will learn important facts about the collection and preservation tips. My staff and I began in storage and combined photography with emergency treatment to freeze conditions of the flaking paintings where the equipment funding could be found. Working with volunteers, we color-coded the survey exams and tags with blue sound and OK to exhibit, yellow caution monitor, and red unable to exhibit in need of preservation. We had to increase individual funding for the large number of seriously deteriorated paintings requiring major treatment and to aid a continuing storage problem. To this end, a borrow-a-barrel program was introduced. A representative selection of 19 were hung on one wall in the gallery with very visible cleaning tests and estimates for conservation treatment. A contractual agreement was drawn up whereby a donor could borrow a painting for one year period if they financed his conservation and insurance coverage for the period of the loan. This was renewable up to three years depending upon the amount invested in the treatment and I prepared a general care handout sheet to accompany the loan. The gallery's operating budget of $8,000 was raised annually in November for direct mailing to appeal for donations. The Merchants Association agreed to display barrel paintings in shop windows concurrently with the appeal. Paintings were selected by size, condition, and suitability of location. I cleaned half a painting for a conservation display and the gallery was open throughout shopping hours. Today, the budget has risen to almost $19,000 and typically receives $10,000 from the annual mailing fund drive. Satellite exhibition venues such as City, Mall, and Airport Window Displays will also draw visitors to local collections. Planned and offered to make presentations to your local chamber, Merchants Association, and other organizations to get their support and keep them informed of your exhibition goals, one year the Chamber of Commerce financed the printing of a quality calendar reproducing barrel's composite up a month. Marketed in village shops with profits to be donated to the gallery. The design of a new brochure was donated by a local designer, and we offered postcard reproductions. Develop connections with local organizations. Every year the garden club decorates a synthetic tree with historic Christmas ornaments as another gallery draw, combined with caroling at scheduled times. It's important that every success story is submitted to the local press to share in the ongoing activity and encourage more donations. Our best fundraiser has proven to be memorial restorations. The sentiment attached to seeing the name of a loved, cherished, or respected individual or organization etched into a brass plaque and mounted on a frame combined with the satisfaction of contributing to preserve our heritage has thus far resulted in over 185 individual conservation treatments. The Rotary Club raised money over three years to restore one large painting and had a sign next to it saying preservation funding reserved by the Rotary Club. Names are also recorded in a donor's book on display in the gallery. Every year the skinny atlas fourth grade classes visit the gallery and write poems about the paintings. The gifted horizon class of 2000 on the left designed and implemented one of the most successful fundraisers after being stimulated by my lecturing to them about climate control comparing brittle paint to egg shells and why it's important for museum collections. They raised funds for the first digital data loggers to monitor conditions in the barrel gallery and decided to take it even further. They came up with a slogan saving our history is dirt cheap and after researching the era that Carolyn and John Barrow lived in they developed a fundraising plan that started by growing period seedling flowers in recycled egg shells early spring to sell. They picked a Saturday and dressed in period costume with baskets of seedlings on their arms and a photo of the portrait by John Barrow of his sister Carolyn. They knocked on almost every door in town to help save Carolyn and a raffle downtown at a table in front of the library with a life-size public barometer of success capped it off. Our community population is about 4,000 and they raised nearly $1,600. They were so successful that they raised enough money to also clean this small child's portrait. The student's teacher entered their project into a statewide contest, Good News Good Kids Youth Responsibility Award which they won and they were invited to meet the governor. This made the evening news and again brought more publicity. I made a story poster showing the examination report and treatment record with documentation images for display in their school corridor window thus involving the entire student body with the project. The project ended with a special celebration for the students and their parents of the completed painting with a brief slide lecture of the treatment and the children reciting what they had learned from the project. Interesting use of your collection for lesson plans with local schools is a win-win situation. Stimulating youth to become involved in projects creates patrons at an early age and typically their parents follow through with their interests. And now I want to ask you if any of you have an annual budget for preservation. So if you don't, it's a good thing to try to get a budget line in and this preservation line can not only be used for treatment but also just for maintenance, materials. Now our float was another successful idea for keeping the gallery in the public eye. Barrel's self-portrait was easily recognizable to the huge public crowd. A simple A-frame construction with a localite JD Barrel played the part. A parade is a captivated crowd which may be used to promote your collection. We also won a Labor Day Parade float prize with a picture in the press and more free coverage. It's important that every treatment donation and especially grants receives press coverage in some way. Photo of the donor in front of the completed painting with the gallery director is most typical. Whenever possible, contact the local press for coverage before during the treatment or as a follow-up when completed. This dramatic treatment received good press coverage and there was a special opening in celebration, again inviting past donors and possible new sponsors. This collection has continued to grow with more donations of his paintings. A tremendous amount of progress has been made since the reopening. They completed a map survey in 2007 followed by a map survey in 2008. Major recommendations were to begin an environmental monitoring program and install an HVAC system, develop a new mission statement and by-law, create a new brochure and a website including online giving with the ability to process credit card donations. All of these have been nearly completed through grants and the gallery's financial reserves. Every year the gallery creates miniature replica paintings for sale to be used as ornaments and gifts. In this way Barrow is kept in the patron's eyes and thoughts. This ongoing preservation story has evolved over 35 years. I want you to realize and be encouraged that preservation progress may be slow but steady with the help of the public, innovative ways to capture their interest and press coverage. In conclusion, to try to evolve the public by offering programs to capture their interest while also promoting your own experience is a good idea. Along this same vein, a great resource for public outreach is the popular May Day program held annually in the months leading up to May 1st. A lecturer workshop on emergency preparedness for family heirlooms would be an excellent companion event. So if you have a gift shop, try to sell books relating to preservation that are of interest to the public like caring for your family treasures and caring for your collections both preservation and how to save your stuff from a disaster written by a conservation colleague Scott Haskins in 1996. These books provide do's and don'ts for preventive maintenance and recommendations for emergencies. To find a conservator go to the AIC website www.conservation-us.org but another emerging referral website www.artcare.com with former AAM president at Abel as director is designed to promote preservation by providing museums and private collections with many art related services in one place. Thank you and please keep your questions until after the next presentation. Thank you Susan and I'm going to pause for a second to let the audience know that after our event you will be able to get a copy of each of our presenters slides and so you can have these links but while I'm pausing if you click on one of these hyperlinks that website will open in a different browser window so if you're really fast on the clicking you can do that before I transition to Beth Tice and I wanted to give you an opportunity to do that and to know that you will get copies of the slides. So I'm going to go ahead and move on to Beth's presentation and she will take over from here. Thank you. Good afternoon thanks Susan. I'm going to talk a little bit about ALA's preservation week and what we did in Waco, Texas which is centrally located in Texas and I see we do have some Texas folks online greetings. We are Baylor University is probably a middle-size library in comparison but we have a very very small group of people working on preservation which is just myself and one part-time person. So for us preservation is continually something we have to work very hard at and so we have working extremely hard at identifying partners in the community it's the only way that I can get help to get some of this work done. We don't have a conservator we just have myself and someone else working on preservation and so when preservation week came up I thought this was an ideal time for us to tap into some outside help. The pictures you see in my slides are from an event we held last year last spring for preservation week and this coming spring it will be April 24th through the 30th one of the from the heritage preservation heritage performance report index stated that 80% of collecting institutions have no paid staff assigned for collections care and that's kind of where we were at at Baylor. So we really were reaching out in preservation we helped us do that. ALA has partnered with others like Heritage Preservation to encourage libraries and other institutions to use this week to connect our communities through events activities and resources that highlight what we can do together to preserve our personal and shared collections. And because we were such small staff for preservation this was the perfect, perfect opportunity to get some help. And so what I'd like to do first is find out and move our poll over and find out if you have ever heard of preservation week or participated in this last year was the first year and my guess is we didn't have too many and that's what it looks like about 80 to 90%. So this might be a real perfect opportunity to introduce you this week and I'm going to move to the next slide. You can I'll just put the poll up there in the corner and they can continue. Okay. Great. We've got some people interested in doing it for this spring. So I included on the past slide I included the link just search for preservation week on Google and it'll pop right up pretty fast. On the side it's a wonderful resource for you. It doesn't matter if you're a large library a small library or a very small society. They have program ideas they have actually a speakers bureau where you can go in and find speakers. They have lots of tips on how to plan an event, how to get funding. They include just custom made kits for press releases which is very helpful for us because we really don't have that skill here in Central Texas in our small community. They also included artwork and logos you'll see the pass it on preservation link that's a logo that you can grab off their site. They have lots of hand out 3D use on just to pass out to the public and bookmarks all kinds of things you can download or you can order and again more tips on how to get more partners and how to work with your community partners. So it's a wonderful site and they have a lot of information. They are working on it right now to get it updated for this spring but there's still lots of helpful information on the site. So I do have from our event last spring I do have 3 tips and I'll talk about this a little more but tip 1 work with your community partners since we're so small and we have so few staff we had to get help so we started with our community number 2 start with just one event. Number 3 keep it simple so here's just some basic facts about Bailey University and the Waco community we had 2 events last year the first one was a disaster planning lecture for the people in our city that had responsibilities for collections this included museums historical societies our city chamber we have several historical churches downtown that kind of have a nice community and then our second event was a preservation clinic and I believe someone from College Station mentioned having the kind of antiques roadshow type thing and that's what this was it was a preservation clinic for the entire community our partners helping with this event included some local historians, genealogists oral historians some preservation experts a few of our state library representatives came up and we also had a local photographer who has a restoration business in town come and help with that event so yes we did tip number 1 we used our community very much so and it worked very well it even gave us helped us with the space that we used we were able to get a just recently it had only been opened a month a renovated hotel from the late 1800s and the company let us have it for free it would have cost us about $3000 but one of the city managers had helped get the building up and running and so they kind of talked them into it so that was another wonderful community outreach for us so tip number 2 I didn't start with one event and it got very busy very quick so remember tip number 2 we started with the two events the disaster planning and the clinic and it would have been better and easier if we just focused on one event and that's one of the pieces that the ALA group working with the preservation week is trying to highlight this year is don't try and do too much just start with something small start with one event and then really focus on that and make it your best effort third tip was keep it simple well we sort of kept it simple you'll notice this is another one of our flyers that went out for the clinic and Jeannie Drews was one of our speakers and she was we were just so lucky to get her come in and so it was really wonderful she did an amazing job but when you bring in the community for a clinic where they could bring all their materials this is a learning experience for all of us that can quickly get very complicated this is our little note at the bottom no weapons of any kind are allowed well we are in Texas and one of the first things I learned from the genealogist that worked with us was they're going to bring in their guns they're going to bring in their swords and stuff so we decided that that wasn't anything we really wanted to deal with so we went ahead and did write it on the flyer which was kind of funny to some people kind of scary to me so what worked we had an amazing turnout for our community I mean it was just a huge turnout and we loved their stories I was so wrapped up in the things I was so wrapped up in the objects and our speakers and when the community came and started telling us the stories that are wrapped up around each of one of their items it was wonderful and it was amazing so it really defined the whole event and it was an excellent thing for both us and for the community we did have very specific goals and that was important we tried not to let the mission of what we were trying to do creep out and try and accomplish too much in one event our PR skills I had an excellent staff member who was great at providing those you know putting those flyers together and then having Genie there was right downtown so everybody could come to that hotel and it was easy everybody knew it was there and it was in all the papers the opening of the building so it was great and we were able to pull in a real varied group of people so that was really important in pulling in many many many more people that we wouldn't have pulled in if we had just gotten one person from Baylor to be a speaker and we had lots of giveaways a lot of the companies like Gaylord are more than happy to send you extra kind of giveaway materials and so the public really liked that what didn't work here's a picture you can see is our the hotel lobby as you come in so it was a beautiful building beautiful space what didn't work two events was just too much for us as our first try at this and since there were only a couple of us planning it it was just it was a little much for us and I found out that our experts need a lot more wrangling than I thought they would they were wonderful but they needed a lot of more attention than I gave them as far as just making sure they you know showed up on time and all of that stuff disaster planning lecture our first event would have probably been better if we did it more as not a lecture but as a workshop to allow some more takeaways so instead of you know we asked and spend their whole evening with us we should have probably given them more information that they could have worked on like maybe the beginning of a disaster plan or something where they could have left with more information than just kind of links to things and you know handouts so I think that that should have been planned a little better as a workshop what are we going to do for next year we're going to keep it smaller I am going to just do one event but what has happened from this last year is that the community has gotten so excited about this week that our genealogist and our county library folks are partnering with us this year and we are focusing on Civil War materials because it's the 150th anniversary that started the Civil War in 2011 so we're going to focus on that and there's going to be a whole week of events but I'm only responsible for one night and the community partners are the first night will be the genealogical society is going to have their regular meeting and we're going to use that meeting to talk about preservation of their materials but the night that we're there we're going to actually take one of our collections of Civil War letters that we've digitized and have a dramatic reading because it's a collection of letters back and forth between Texas Cavalrymen and his fiance and so we're going to have two folks read those and really try and emphasize the importance of the stories behind these so that they can kind of make that connection like Susan had talked about earlier that connection between your own stories and these materials moving ahead so some inspiration for you all I mean there's been some wonderful examples so far but try looking at this I've created put this URL Michigan Alliance it's the Michigan Alliance for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage has a wonderful web page up where they've combined a statewide kind of group and it's a statewide web page for libraries, archives, museums, historical societies and preservation networks it's a really wonderful resource and that's a great way to look at how they've pulled their communities together to create one place for information about preservation I love Milwaukee Public Library last year did a their title for their event was Don't Leave Grandma in the Attic love that title and don't forget the stories in Santa Cruz County school district in Arizona the students like with Susan's students these students shared personal stories of how they preserved their own collectibles that they had that were of value to themselves and I think having those students shared it to a young students makes a huge difference and then I would recommend that you look at digital storytelling this is the University of Maryland Baltimore County link digital storytelling is kind of a new fad word but it's basically taking oral history and video and preservation and putting all together in one package and it is a it is a wonderful, wonderful web page that has lots of examples that you can go look at but they have some wonderful digital stories of letters sent back and forth during the war and just even some student projects and faculty projects it's a great page to go to get some inspiration on what might work for you all it's a little complicated for me where I am to put together because I'm not sure about the technology but I think I've been able to use some of that information with our Civil War or dramatic reading to be able to put together a nice event so thank you so much and just keep remembering the simple things that we learned from last year is to work with our community partners because that's been a huge huge benefit this entire year because we've made some new friends and found out where some expertise is and it's helping us do what we've never been able to do on our own keep with one event because the bigger you start to plan the more complicated it gets and then keep it simple and we had a tremendous year last year and we're really looking forward to this next year so thank you very much and I think we can start looking at questions. Okay great and I put that last poll up there so the audience can kind of fill in if they've worked with other partners in the community and audience feel free to put your questions in that chat area. I would like to start out with a basic question that came in from Kim Kenney in Camp in Ohio how are you defining preservation versus conservation and this would be a question that I would field to each of you so let's start with Amber and then Susan and then Beth. Certainly thanks. That is actually a question that I start most of our public tours off with because it is so commonly people use those interchangeably but we will defer to the definition that is on the AIC website so I encourage you people do fall back and forth or go back and forth to what preservation is versus conservation. If you go to the AIC website they actually do provide you with a definition of it but we try to describe it as being conservation is a broad umbrella if you will and it encompasses things like preservation and collection care and treatment which is actually what we call intervention when we do the treatment to the artifacts so we try to use conservation descriptively as a broad umbrella and then preservation being a part of it more proactively caring for these items in a very proactive way so that is how we often will present it to the public. OK Susan do you have something you want to add to that? I might have muted herself. Beth you want to jump in? Yeah I think preservation as being all all-encompassing and comprehensive and it might be things that we do that are what we call preventive maintenance so it might be little things that we do to prevent damage would be what I would call a lot of preservation and basically in conservation I often think of remedial treatments but again the AIC website is where it's really defined accurately Beth you want to add anything else in that? Yeah I agree with that. I mean at our institution we kind of use the word preservation for kind of basic care of the materials anytime we here talk about conservation it's in kind of the more scientific more complicated needs of the collection that we don't have the basic skills here to do so. OK now following up on that still a kind of definitional question when you say collections care define that for me This is Susan Blakeney and again when I think of collection care it's comprehensive care everything from storage to display to handling to the materials you use to lighting, environment collection care is everything that would make a collection last its longest I agree with that Susan that's a really good definition a way of speaking about it it's really involving anything that encompasses care basically of the artifacts themselves And how about it's a natural history collection we had a couple questions about that In which regard how it is presented to the public or programs that could be associated with it Well we could answer from all of those standpoints Jean from Wilmington asked suggestions that you have for natural history collections where they typically don't treat but do preventative work and there was a later question that came in about natural history collections Well natural history collections are really interesting because of the type of preservation that needs to be done to keep these pieces of the collection preserved moving forward there's a lot of challenges involved with them there's also a lot of stories that are linked with them how we used to preserve them how we now preserve them giving, talking about those stories could be really important and the importance of these natural history collections and the wrong knowledge of them when I entered into graduate school in conservation I learned a lot more about natural history collections and I thought wow I was always wondering why they collected these animals and conveying those stories to the public really helps to understand why you are collecting these items and then the challenges of preserving them and what it means when they're in alcohol and what happens to the information and what is the information that you're trying to retain in the care of those collections So there's a lot of interesting stories I think that surround the natural history collections I also think of Susan Blakeney here of natural history collections of having a unique need for the absolute best storage materials and mount making to actually store collections appropriately you have to present them and store them correctly behind the scenes tours of natural history collections could be really interesting to the public they have no idea how many pieces you have in your collection and how you store them which is so unique and I think that would be a very interesting thing to actually do to show to the public and the environmental conditions are a great thing to speak about because when you think about the color of the feathers on these birds and how important it is to identify these different animals and you can't let light damage them because you're losing information if you do that so you know again this idea of preservation and care as Susan pointed out is real important and behind the scenes I agree with you Susan that's a great idea and also the idea that most people don't realize that our early mounts and our early taxidermy is highly toxic in our homes and the whole country is filled with these lovely stuffed animals but people really don't know how poisonous they can be so there's a lot of education that could go on as well well that would make me sit up and take notice you know the whole concept of talking about story is coming out loud and clear and for instance Tamara echoed something that I had written on the side about how do you get all of these stories you've told about a couple of programs but any additional ideas that you want to share well I thought it was great that Beth brought up this is Amber Beth brought up this idea of don't leave Grandma in the attic the Milwaukee Public Library that was actually given by Debbie Hesnora and when you invite as I suggested inviting a conservator maybe to come and give a talk about how to care for photographs or quilts or whatever it may be it's amazing how people show up with these treasures in their pockets and when she did that there was a gentleman who stepped forward and she's a big beetle fan someone stepped forward with a photograph taken in Philadelphia I think at this very limited concert where they only allowed one photographer there and he was a descendant of this photographer and presented that material to her so you never know who's going to show up with a story at one of these public events that you may organize and people get to hear that story well and we have, this is Beth we have a football coach, it was very popular when our team was winning he's still beloved by our community and when we mentioned that we were looking at doing Civil War stuff he came forward and he has a huge Civil War collection from his own family and so he's going to be reading some of his personal letters at our event but also since we know about him ahead of time I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to try and capture some of this digitally and put together a small video that we could then link to of either the city's web pages or our university's web pages because he has he's such a wonderful storyteller himself so since we've already identified him we could use this as PR for the event coming up we can also use it just as you know for the beginnings of a really nice web page that can pull our community together so we're excited about that Beth while you were describing your event in the hotel lobby a question came in about what if your place is too small to do a program like that do you have any ideas for those institutions that are smaller to do like a preservation clinic we've had we had talked to some other people that had done the clinic and they just kept it smaller they kept they had one or two tables and just one or two people just kept the flow of the traffic coming through a different way so I still think you could do it and invite the entire community to it you might limit the clinic to a specific format so that you're not having everybody bring in all kinds of things that maybe keep it to letters or bibles or something so that you don't have just this massive amount of materials coming in and then you don't feel like you can get to everybody for a certain type of thing this is Susan I'm Blake Dean I also think that if your group is so small that you simply don't have the staff or the volunteers to put on a workshop then just put on a lecture series even that is very stimulating for the public and a lecture series could be designed for the public family heirloom so it'd be something interesting to them like everybody has photo albums everybody has treasures that they can save for the next generation but they need to know how to take care of these and how to store them because things are stored so badly in their attics and also they should think of if they had a disaster what would be the three most important things they would try to save and how would they save them so I think there's a lot of things you can do on a smaller scale with lecturing OK here's a really interesting question that just came in on the topic of story I want to take this a little out of sequence but do you have to worry about the rights to stories it's similar to if you've ever done an oral history with someone it's a similar type thing that we would get them to sign something ahead of time agreeing to having this as something digital that's online the group the web page University of Maryland has some nice information about kind of a form to use OK and here is a question specific for Susan that came in from Jeff in Indianapolis were there any concerns that you had with the Borrow and Barrow program and the IRS gee I never heard of any problems with the IRS because what they were doing was they donated money to the gallery the gallery used that money in return to treat the painting they did pay for the insurance the fine art insurance themselves the people that borrowed it and they considered the I guess it was considered basically just I don't know we never had an issue come up but it is a question I think if we if you ask them maybe it would be I have no idea but we actually chose paintings too we considered if something were to happen to it it wasn't like a prized piece we had a lot of multiples of things so we certainly had a whole group of paintings that we said we would never ever lend but we did have a group of paintings that were languishing and there was such a storage problem that it really helped solve two things at once and this program has been going on for maybe 15 years and we've never ever had a painting damaged other than one painting fell off of a wall wow what a great track record and everything was in perfect condition when it went to them because it had just been restored uh-huh completely you know that was the deal now that leads to the next question that came in from Cindy in York Pennsylvania how do you balance or foresee balancing the move to making things more accessible at the objects accessible versus approach to preserving or limiting access well this is Amber if I can interject here a moment we talk about an object in say our gallery tours that's where it's really been nice to have these little samples so that we can show them examples of even deterioration we've got some paintings that have been donated to us that are just beyond repair they're relics but we can show people we can use them as didactics I think we saw an earlier question asking what a didactic is and that's something that you can present and use as a teaching tool something visual, something tactile they can touch it, they can hold it and that's where we also will if you're talking about a quilt you can give them a sample of a quilt that they can hold but then you can also talk about how the stitches are or what it's made out of and what these things feel like and the public really loves this idea when we use these samples on our tours when we touch things our frames conservator is great about when he talks about gilding he'll take out a piece of gilded metal and then he'll pass it around and people will think they can hold it and then it evaporates in their hand and they think that's amazing where they get it stuck on their fingers so you don't need to have them touch the actual object for them to experience the frailty of the object themselves you can use other things, smaller examples sort of engaging with whatever the sample is you give them I would agree with that as well samples are great we have a tiny box full of paint flakes that we pass around and the kids absolutely go crazy they usually come back pulverized but it really gets the point across Susan, I'm just kind of curious you mentioned that the class that did the phenomenal fundraising in 2000 so they have probably graduated now they're all college students I'm sure did anyone go into museum science? I don't know but I actually know a couple of the mothers in town here I could find out what a great introduction to that you know personally I think that had an experience when I lectured to the kids about humidity I made them all blow into mirrors and fog them and they did a lot of things made them understand it pretty well so they really did I was amazed how they took off with that but I think actually the box of paint shards plus the humidity lecture and the real need plus showing them like a before and after of a treatment they just couldn't believe it and they make those connections beautifully don't they Susan when we give our tours and we have those it's amazing I think one of the questions that was earlier was asking how their stories, they don't think their stories are important but in reality when they start hearing these things they start making associations with their own treasures and they start going oh wait a minute we keep that in this awful box underneath in the basement and they start imagining what could be happening to that grandma's quilt that's down in the basement area I think one young student brought a painting that he got at the dump at the swap shop that somebody had thrown away and wanted to rescue it and he brought it and his parents brought it to us and said well you know he really wants to do this and we're thinking of doing it for his birthday and you know they didn't really want to spend a lot of money and the painting was considered disposable however they did do this and we did this treatment and this little child was absolutely thrilled that is really neat okay going back to small museums what about people who aren't conservators but still have to do collections care well I think you need to bring a conservator in to give a workshop to your volunteers because you can be taught to do the kind of housekeeping and maintenance that you should be doing routinely and you need to get a professional conservator to come in and do a specific workshop for you and the American Institute for Conservation website you know that's a great resource and they're actually trying to promote you know outreach and information education to the public so you know contact them that's what they're there for contact them with questions if you're a small institution and you need help go to these resources that are available to you today this is what I'd love to do is there anyone in my area that would be willing to collaborate with us to do this because especially if it's a private conservator a number of these private conservators that I know that will do these small little lectures for free for libraries or small collections it helps them they get to know their community and they think who shows up and then they get connected with clients the clients learn about the collection care and the challenges there's a lot of simple collaborations that can go on so if you need a conservator go to the AIC website engage with them, ask them tell them what you want to do and see where that goes but you've got to initiate that you've got to reach out there Beth, Susan do you have anything to add to that? I did a minute ago that's what's happening Amber with some of our partnerships we created last year is that now we're able to work together and we're going to we're working with the community the county library to be able to pull money together to get someone up to work with photographs this week this next spring so we're very excited about that and I couldn't have done it just on my own but because we created these partnerships now we're going to go in together on the cost to get someone in You get your name associated with this partnership even if it's not hosted at your particular site but you're part of a teaming that makes this happen for the community your collection is a part of that, you're a partner of it I'm going to say we once held a workshop where we invited collection managers to actually come and learn how to do their own preservation framing framing is a huge problem in museums and it can be very expensive but if you can know how to appropriately unframe and reframe something yourself it gives you a lot of advantages and maybe you don't want maybe on your own place you couldn't do this but if you could find a conservator and maybe a group of you could organize has a group workshop or even maybe more than one institution if you felt that your group was too small to organize it all by yourself I think that there are regional centers regional conservation centers and they offer lots of workshops as well and you might not be on their mailing list so you might not even know about these offerings but that's another source for a lot of instruction for your staff There was mention earlier to the popular Antiques Roadshow program. Are there other contemporary cultural icons that you could think of for invoking enthusiasm among the community for the collections they may have in their homes and the stories they may bring to you? Just the History Channel has really good shows on occasion they actually feature they used to have a thing where you could write in a story and they would feature it too and you could do that locally I don't remember which one of you brought out the importance of getting the press involved but I'm sure that you all have opinions about that as you work with the community I'm in a very small community population 4,000 so the little press is very small and when you submit an article they don't always even run it however you have to write your own articles and submit them and if you're lucky they will run it but we just keep bombasting them and every small museum if you ever have a conservation treatment done blow your horn get some publicity about it if you win a grant have an article done about this get a before and after photograph in the paper it actually encourages more donations to you people think wow they're taking care of their things and you are so you should be proud of it we were lucky in our community that the preservation week fell in the same month that they were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the city park and so someone had been doing kind of a series of articles in the paper so we were able to kind of fold our event up under that is another kind of care preservation piece and so that got an article run then that was able to we were after that we were able to do some ads for the event as well but I agree with Susan that there's anything to celebrate get it out there whether it's on Facebook or even in the paper I mean it's huge that's how we got most of yeah that's how we got most of our audience from that one article that showed up in the paper and if you have a website I believe you should have a wish list on your website of things you needed to be donated I mean people all have extra things you'd be surprised at what people have might need in storage or somehow in your office or whatever but if people don't know it then they're never going to donate it to you right and the audience I think I brought up during my presentation that if you're working with a conservator the AIC website does have a section where they say tell your story and they would probably be very interested I mean they're always looking for new stories to post and they don't need to be long you know stories they can be just a couple paragraphs and for those who follow things like the art newsletter online or art daily they just put in little snippets but these places they're publishing daily and sometimes they need to fill their coffers if you will with stories so don't hesitate to keep resubmitting and trying you just never know who will grab the story and run with it which is great for your collection another idea I've often wanted to see every conservation treatment which could be like a stiff piece of card that would be something you could hold in your hand maybe slightly bigger than a printed page you would have a before and after photo at a minimum and then a very small interesting to read paragraph or two about the treatment and that should be in a pocket on the wall in the gallery where the piece is exhibited so even if you don't have an exhibition about preservation that information is right there and anybody who's coming and touring the gallery could pick these up and go wow this was recently treated and sit there or stand there and look at it and get this education and I think that would be a very easy way and something that could be kept in storage and every time that's exhibited that could come out again This is Amber, those storyboards work so well for us and they really work well also on the part of the Washington Conservation Guild when we do those angel project days building that material for that site that we've worked out for the day so they can see that there's this activity where people are coming in they're helping to re-house things they're helping to care for these collections they use it as a great media day they take pictures, they keep those pictures on the storyboards and they're able to talk about that for a period of time and just as Susan said, it's a great resource and it's again the storytelling it's the connecting the public to the story of your collection the public actually to them, conservation is magic they don't understand it and they just go, wow Well it's accessible, we found that during our tours when you talk about these things they find it an easy way it's very blue collar to them in some ways, we are with our hands working with the artifacts, we're preserving them we're treating them and they feel connected to it and they don't feel like they had to have gotten a degree in art history to understand the object anymore they're actually, they have a story behind it and they love that, they really engage with it I always tell the public that watching us is like watching the grass grow it's a very slow process so you only need to watch us for a few minutes and then we'll run to something else because each step takes quite a while Here's a great question that just came in from Elizabeth Martin about your recommendations for approaching or motivating colleagues who think we shouldn't engage with the public especially with social media that it may overshadow the objects or become too invasive Well I would say ask them to let you give it a chance on one thing and then see what the response is because I think they would be really surprised to see how positive an interaction it is I mean I've yet to really have an example I can give you about a negative you know when we told the story of the artifact using one of these outlets you know whether it be Facebook or a blog article it's great to see the response people have and I don't know why what the person's reasoning for not wanting to do it would be but you know give it a chance and see and at least try it We had some a little pushback when we first started our event and what we ended up doing was involving that person more with our especially with some of the digital pieces to it I mean I think it was just kind of an unknown piece to them and once we had them kind of get their hands in with us on the event then they felt more comfortable about what was going to happen so I think the more information they have and the more information you can give them I think that helps bring them along the ride with you We have a we have a few more minutes for any late questions that come in I did post up an evaluation for folks to access and this has been very interesting very interesting I do want to let the audience know we have one final webinar a week from today and that is on the bookshelf series again specific to the care of paper photographs and audio visual collections so exactly one week from today so there is one more webinar that you might want to attend You know one more point I might bring up is that you just gave some great advice about involving the person is also to show them potentially other really successful stories that Wiki site that I spoke about that Nancy Robinel runs and shows how new media can be used it really gives a lot of examples of people that are out there doing that right now so maybe showing them different examples about how this is a success for some things could maybe generate their interest and enthusiasm a little bit more as well and then of course the involvement that Beth recommended is a great idea Amber one last question about Facebook do you have about image rights Well we post images of either people that are working here or images that are part of our collection were public collection we do not post images that have children in them unless we've gotten authorization to post those images so we don't often we will show if we show groups of adults that's one thing but there are protocols and I think Beth did you provide a site that gave some good information on I don't know if she did not Well the storytelling does have some information about just the idea of an interview so there may be some things about rights on that page I haven't seen it yet but I wouldn't recommend going around taking pictures of other people's collections but certainly your own you have rights to those images and using them on Facebook we will often even talk about analysis I've done treatments and what's nice being that we are the Smithsonian we have people from around the world working here they see in our center they see something being worked on and then they leave and they don't know what the end of the story is so we tell that story on the Facebook it's sort of like a story board that's available to them through Facebook to see how the project got started before and after treatments and if we've done some analysis we can talk about x-rays we can talk about infrared we can talk about cross-section analysis and provide those images up online again to continue that story Right for conservatives in private practice this is Susan Blakeney whenever I do something educational I have to always make sure that I get them to sign off and that I get permission to use the images everything I do is considered confidential often we're working for a private individual but even for the museum it's confidential so but if it's your museum and they're your things and you know whether or not you can use them but when you involve other museums pieces or anyone's images you want to get them to sign something that you have permission to use them for educational purposes and oftentimes they'll want to say that they'd like to have credit that that piece came from them and sometimes not sometimes if you use a portion of an image and not an entire thing you don't need that necessary permission unless it's easily recognizable I think By the way, do you have to worry about people taking images from Facebook? I don't know I would have thought so We've not run into that yet, just Amber Alright, well I want to thank our guests again, very informative very interesting all three of you in how you're approaching the education of the public in getting them involved in collections and conservative conservation and thank you for your time, thank you audience for staying with us and I hope to see you next week as we finish our series, thanks Thank you, it's been a pleasure working with you guys