 The floor is over to Jenny Irina. Thank you so much, Adam. So as Adam said, I'm Jenny Irina with Heritage Preservation and we're so glad so many of you are interested in learning more about the Conservation Assessment Program. But before we get on to the topic, let me just do a quick introduction to the online community for those of you who are joining us for the first time. So the Connecting to Collections online community was originally created in cooperation with the American Association for State and Local History and with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It is moderated by Heritage Preservation and Learning Times produces both the website and the webinars. The goal of the online community has always been to have smaller museums, libraries, archives and historical societies quickly locate reliable preservation resources and offer to network with their colleagues to help you do that. We've compiled an extensive list of online resources that have been vetted and are trusted. They're broken up by topics on the online community and you'll see those resources filed under the topics menu on the website. We also host regular webinars and now online courses this year and those are also all archived under Webinar Archives on the top of the website. So make sure to check that out and this webinar will also be filed under there as well as the recording is available. So that was just a quick introduction and I'm going to go ahead and introduce our speakers today. We have on board with us Theresa Martinez who is the Conservation Assessment Program Director and Melanie Zucker who is the CAP program assistant and they're going to share with you guys some information about the program and they're also on board to answer any questions that you have about the program and before I go ahead and hand things completely over to them we wanted to ask you guys a quick question just where you heard about CAP and let me go ahead and enlarge this if you wouldn't mind and hopefully all those results are showing up on your screen if you wouldn't mind clicking one so where did you get information about CAP that prompted you to come to this webinar? There we go. So a few sources, online community so mostly it looks like from a colleague which is really interesting to see. All right. I'm going to move this out of the way. Thank you guys. As Adam said, if you have any questions throughout this whole webinar please feel free to post them in the chat box and before our time is up we'll try to get to them. Theresa, I'm going to go ahead and pass things over to you. Thank you. Thanks so much, Jenny. So I am Theresa Martinez and the Director of the Conservation Assessment Program and we're just going to be giving you guys an overview of the program, the application process and answer any questions that you all might have. Many of you might be aware that the application season for 2014 has been delayed significantly but we have good news. The application is going to go live on our website tomorrow so it will be available Wednesday, December 11th starting at 9 a.m. So this ended up being really good timing for this webinar. So CAP has been around since 1990 so we have been around for going on 24 years now and CAP, for those of you who may not be as familiar with it is a program that helps small to mid-sized museums improve the ways in which they're caring for their collections and this includes all types of collections. Not just historic objects but we have natural history museums, we have art museums, we have zoos, aquariums, mechanical gardens, so if you have living collections we can get those assessed as well. So CAP assessments include a two-day site visit. You're going to need to work with a professional conservator who will look at everything that impacts your collections and then after the site visit they spend three days writing a comprehensive report for you that will give you prioritized recommendations that will help you improve your collections' care and those prioritized recommendations are really great for going on to do targeted fundraising, applying for grants, that sort of thing because a lot of grantee organizations foundations and even private donors like to see that you've had an outside expert come in to look at your collection. Also if you happen to have historic structures that are 50 years old or older you can also get a second assessor to look at all of your historic structures. You could have a historic preservation architect come in and help you kind of figure out how best to be caring for your building and how to kind of mesh the care of your collections with the care of your historic structures. So for 2014 here's an idea of what our timeline is going to be looking like. As I mentioned we're going to be releasing the 2014 application tomorrow and it will be open until February 14th, 2014. So I know it's ripe for the holidays. You might be a little swamped right now but don't worry you have all of January and half of February to work on the application as well. CAP does have limited funding so we do recommend that museums try to submit their application as early as possible in order to increase their chances of being funded because we always receive more applications than we are able to find. So after the February 14th deadline we are hoping to be able to make awards as soon as there's a federal budget. We are funded to the Institute of Museum and Library Services so we are unfortunately kind of... We have to go along with what the federal budget does. So once there's an actual federal budget for 2014 we'll be able to get museums started on the 2014 program. We're hoping February or March. Either way in the spring museums who have got... who have been admitted to the program will receive a site questionnaire self-study. You fill out that kind of helps not only your museum but also gives your assessor a good idea of what collections care currently looks like at your institution. It's really great because it really helps the museum. Everyone at the museum kind of sit down and look at what's the current state of our collection. What are we currently doing? It's really useful for the institution and gives your assessor an idea of what to expect kind of where you guys are at the current point. Also during this time you'll be selecting an assessor. Assessors are not assigned to you. The museum does get a lot of say in what assessor you work with. You will be... We have a whole database of cap assessors of over 400 at this point all over the country in almost every state. So you will be given a list of assessors in your region who are nearby will also recommend some assessors based on if your collection is... an art museum will recommend some assessors who are specialists in different kinds of art materials and that sort of thing. But the museum... From there on out the museum gets to select the assessor. If there's someone that you would like to work with who is not already a cap approved assessor they are welcome to apply. We do look for experience doing general assessments and an advanced degree in conservation or architecture. So museums really have a lot of leeway on this. You can... You will interview the assessors, speak to them about what their fees are going to be and that sort of thing. So the museum has a lot of control over what the final product of their assessment is going to look like. Once you've filled out your site questionnaire and selected your assessor then going into summer and fall of next year you'll be having your site visit. The assessor spends two days on site talking with staff, looking at your collection space, exhibit space, storage space, all that sort of thing as well as any historic structures that you have. In the fall then you'll be receiving a draft report from your assessor that you'll be able to review, make any edits, make any comments. If there's anything you don't understand you can ask for clarification. Our assessors are really great in considering the report to what the museum really needs most. And then into fall and winter you'll receive your final report. Excuse me. And your assessors will submit their invoice and the payment process works is each museum receives an allocation amount based on your budget. Museums with smaller budgets get slightly more money. I'll talk about that a little more later. And heritage preservation will pay your assessor up to that allocation amount. A significant portion of museums that's all you have to worry about. If you did hire an assessor who is going to be a little bit more expensive the museum will be responsible for amounts over the allocation amount. But it's usually not very much money. So who can participate in CAP? These are the basic eligibility requirements. Just being a nonprofit or a run by state, local or tribal government. You do have to be organized as a museum. This is because we are funded by the museum and of the Institute of Museum and Library Services as opposed to the library and the organization. So the library and funds projects at libraries museum and funds projects at museums. We are unfortunately not open to institutions that are primarily libraries. But there are some other resources that we do know about. So if you are a library and are worried about your collections or that sort of thing we can point you towards the programs that will fund assessments for you. Obviously you need to have some actual objects for your assessors to take a look at. You do have the equivalent of one full-time staff person. This does not have to be one 40-hour-a-week person. A lot of our CAP museums have no full-time staff. And it also does not have to be a paid staff person. You can add up to 20-hour-a-week people to 20-hour-a-week volunteers. Actually, and really what we're looking for is 35 hours a week being devoted to professional media activities. So unfortunately, we can't count the hours put in by your tour guides or the front desk person. We're looking for people who are involved with the administration of the museum, budgeting, that sort of thing, collections, actual collections work or educational work developing educational programs, that sort of thing. And if you have any questions a staff person will qualify for equivalency, just let us know. Please tell us about what the person does and we can let you know if that will count. Obviously, because we're funded by the federal government, you do have to be located in the U.S. or U.S. territory. And you do need to be open to the general public at least 90 days in the past year. So your institution does have to have been open for at least a year, but at least 90 days a year. But it does not have to be 90 regularly scheduled days. That can be if you have, if you're maybe only open, say, Saturday and Sunday, but you also are open by appointment. If you have a guest book or a guest log where people can sign in when they come in for special appointments or whatever, those can count. You do have to then record all of those days on the application, but we can count them towards your 90 days. So it's pretty easy to get to that 90 days, because we're able to count a lot of different things. So you may have heard of RECAP and maybe your institution has gone through RECAP before. Since 2006, we've been doing RECAP which allows your museum to go through a second time, at least seven years after your original assessment. This is great if your museum has completed all of the recommendations from your original report, or your institution has changed significantly, you've merged with another museum, you've acquired new historic structures, or you've just had kind of general significant changes in your institution, so your original recommendations aren't really applicable anymore. You will want to fill out the RECAP supplement at the end of the RECAP application. You will need to have a copy of your original RECAP report. If you don't have one on hand, if you just can't locate the original RECAP report in your records, Heritage Preservation can send you a copy of your RECAP report. It does cost $30 though from pulling the report from offsite storage and that sort of thing. So if you do need a copy of your original RECAP report just let us know, and we can work that out. So, as I mentioned, we're going to talk a little bit about what the cost of RECAP is. There is no required match. Unlike a lot of other IMLS programs, there's not a required one-to-one match or anything like that. This chart on your screen shows you what our allocation amounts currently are based on your museum's budget. About 75% of CAP museums fall into the less than $250,000 budget category. So those are the maximum amounts that you can get. And those right-hand columns under one assessor and two assessors show on average what museums have to pay. This varies tremendously. And as I mentioned before, the museum has a lot of control over this. If your museum absolutely cannot spend more than your allocation amount let the assessors that you're interviewing know this. And then chances are you'll be able to find an assessor who will say, okay, I'll come in right at the allocation amount. So if you need to, you can pick an assessor based on how much they're going to cost because they will, you will have to sign an agreement with them up front. There's no surprises of what you're going to have to pay. You know from the beginning of the program, this is how much your museum is committed to having to pay if your costs are going to go over the allocation amount. If you have any other questions about the costs feel free to let us know. As I mentioned, these amounts are just estimates and they do vary quite a bit. How do you apply? As I mentioned the application will be available starting tomorrow. The applications are being accepted through February 14th so you do have a couple of months to get them in. The applications will be available on the website and it's going to be available in two different formats. One, you can download a application that has that you can fill in on your computer or spaces to fill in all of the answers and then you can either print that out and mail it to us or you can email it to us. This is new for this year in the past we have not accepted email submissions but for 2014 we are accepting emails of the CAP application. There is also a fully online version that you can access at cap.heritagepreservation.org There will also be links to the online application from the regular CAP website. This online application is one thing to be aware of if you do have more than about five or ten historic structures you probably should not use the online application because it gets a little problematic if you have more than about seven or eight structures. Just to be aware for your facility section. Make sure to fill out all of the applicable supplements. There is a supplement for for zoos and aquariums and there is a supplement for Arboretums and Botanical Gardens. If your institution falls into any of those categories do make sure to fill out the supplement. There is also a recap supplement. If a museum has gone through CAP before we can make sure to fill that out. If you are not sure if your institution has gone through CAP before just contact myself or Melanie and we can look you up. We have a full database of all museums who have ever been through CAP so we can definitely let you know if you are not sure. One thing to be careful about is to make sure that whoever you listed your project contact on your application their email address and phone number are accurate and are going to be checked regularly because if the CAP staff has any questions we will email or call the project contact. So if we need any additional information on your application or if we have any questions about it that's the person we are going to contact. So make sure that you have a good email address and phone number in there for them. So now we are going to transition a little bit into why do you apply for CAP? Melanie is going to talk a little bit about what museums have been able to do after the program and right in here we have just a little note that we have gotten from the North Manchester Historical Society in Indiana who went through CAP a couple of years ago and there is also a picture of one of the CAP site visits with the assessors taking a look at the collections and how they are being stored and exhibited and that sort of thing. So Paul, for a moment I can take any questions that you might have and then I can pass it over to Melanie for what museums are able to do after CAP. Sure, yeah. It doesn't look like there are any questions just yet but for folks who are assigned feel free to type any questions you have in that chat box and we will make sure we get to them by the time we finish this webinar, sorry. So Melanie, it sounds like we are ready to hear about what CAP museums have done. Fantastic, thank you so much. So we want to take a little bit of a step back and talk about what you can do with your CAP report. Starting in 2006 we started sending out alchemy evaluations to figure out what institutions were doing with the information that we were giving them and we found some very promising things. All of these numbers are self-reported so they are not completely comprehensive but what we found was that just one year after getting their CAP recommendations museums were averaging almost $23,000 in private and foundation funding at our umbrella and local state funding as well. It was about $27,500 per museum so we institutions are also going for larger federal grants which unfortunately have longer time frame so it's harder for us to gauge how quickly they are able to achieve that. We also found that internal funding for collections care went up 112% over when the museum went through the numbers that they reported to us before they went through the program so what we found was that the CAP report was generating a lot of discussion among staff members and board members about proper collections care and that museums were using these reports to generate interest amongst the community and to help people get invested in preserving these artifacts. So we had a couple of museums that got back to us with some stories and things that they've done as a result of their CAP. University of Pittsburgh University Art Gallery went through very recently just in 2013 and so they decided to do an exhibit called Rediscover the Collection of Eels and they included pieces in the storage area that were displayed next to properly preserved pieces to show a before and after effect and so they were hoping to have contribution efforts within the institution and to show what they were doing as storage of these collections in order to preserve them better. So we also heard back from the Adams Museum House in Bedwood, South Dakota and they actually went through recap as well so they went through in 1998 and 2006 and so it was really nice to hear back from them because we were actually able to find that the further out they were the better the results I suppose that they were able to accomplish one of their short term goals was that they had identified the need to create a disaster preparedness response and recovery plan and so they hired a conservator to assist with that and they had updated it on a regular basis and then in 2002 the entire city the landmark district of the museum was located in the neighboring town they were all evacuated as a result of an out of control forest fire thankfully everything all the buildings survived just fine but then there were much slides flooding that followed as a result of that and so it was a big disaster all around and it was a wake up call from the museum and they realized that they needed to do a lot more than just writing down the disaster plan that they needed to be more proactive with training so they spoke with other organizations in the area and they all got together to put on training workshops for professional in to help train them and help them understand what they needed to do and why and then they also told us that in 2009 they had an IMLS grant to purchase path perfect collections management software and so they're working on renovating one of their former manufacturing buildings to house the collections and using the path perfect to keep track of everything so CAP report can also be very useful in the AM accreditation process the process looks for museums to meet many standards including collection stewardship including having a strategic plan in place for the use and development collection having an appropriate amount of staff and a sufficient level of professional education to conduct responsible collections management and having regular assessments of the collection mean the steps towards achieving those goals are frequently included in CAP assessment recommendations and through careful and thorough implementation of the CAP recommendations many many small and the size museums have found themselves prepared for the accreditation process and so that was another thing that we had found and then even the most recent issue of Capabilities we looked at the Oklahoma City Zoo and they had had a building part of the WA works back in the 30s and it had it on the V-site and it had no idea what to do with it and so after going through CAP they decided to turn it into a museum that showed the physical changes that the zoo had gone through over the years with people who had been going through it their entire lives because they looked back and saw the changes that had gone on there so a lot of what we're finding are these long term generating discussions with the community about what the museums are going through so I wasn't sure if anyone had any other questions at the moment this is Ginny so I know Trisa wanted to talk a little bit about steps in that Trisa if you want to go ahead that would be great okay I just wanted to talk really briefly about a couple of other programs if you've learned a little bit about CAP if you're thinking maybe this program isn't exactly what we're looking for there are a handful of other programs out there that cover a lot of similar issues within museums CAP is very much focused on how you're caring for your collections and all of the physical aspects that impact collections from light to humidity to the ways in which they're being stored and exhibited and that sort of thing if your institution is a little more concerned about say your collections management policy or how you your loan agreement the ways in which you accept donations that sort of thing your loan documents and policies in place in your institution we can definitely recommend the museum assessment program MAP is run by AAM the American Alliance Museum they are also funded through IMLS MAP is kind of the sister program to CAP and they have attracted it specifically focused on looking at your collections care documents they focus on your collections management policy and that sort of thing it's very similar to CAP that you do have an outside coming in and they'll help you kind of look at your documents figure out ways in which they can be improved or if you don't even have a collections management policy in place they'll give you recommendations on how to put one together so MAP is a great option if you're looking for a different type of collections care to fit maybe your institution doesn't quite meet the eligibility requirements for CAP maybe you've not opened 90 days maybe you haven't quite been open for a year or you don't have the equipment to the full-time staff person in that case one great program you can take a look at is the STEP program which is run by the American Association for State and Local History that's a great kind of self-study program you get a whole big book of it offers a lot of information a lot of advice on kind of the basic management and running of your museum and it's a great way to kind of get everyone at your institution together and looking at how you're running things at your museum so that's through the American Association for State and Local History now CAP is a general assessment of your entire collection so but what if you maybe are particularly concerned about the textiles in your collection if there's a specific part of your collection that you would like to have assessed unfortunately CAP can't do that but there's a couple of other options out there you mentioned the Preservation Assistance Grants through the National Endowment for the Humanities those are open those are much more flexible you basically propose your own project it's not as limited as CAP is so you can propose to do an assessment of just part of your collection a TAG is also great if you're in library TAG is open to any humanities collection so it doesn't have to be a museum it could even be I know that they've had kind of county archives and that sort of thing goes through so it's a really flexible program maybe your institution is too big to be assessed in two days maybe you just your collections are too extensive your there's too many different sites where they're stored something like that the great alternative in that case is the Museums for America program which is run and funded directly by the Institute of Museum and Library Services like PAG MFA is very flexible you propose your own project and you can do a general assessment through them they also accept applications for community engagement and education programs so they're not just limited to collections care there's a lot of different options out there if you want any additional information or have any questions on who to contact at those various programs just shoot the CAP staff email at cap at heritagepreservation.org and we can point you in the right direction and we're always happy to offer advice even if CAP isn't the right program for your museum we can point you in the right direction probably so there's a lot of options out there and available to institutions that are also geared towards helping your museum care for their collections care for your collections in the best way possible so if anyone has any questions you're welcome to just type them in right here if you think the question later don't hesitate to email us and we can definitely answer any questions that you have and remember that the CAP application is available starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow thank you so much Tracy so it looks like we have a few people typing I'll just give it a few minutes I just do if anyone has any questions you know I've heard as well that CAP is a great way to get your feet wet as well in the grant writing so a great launching patch for that is that right? I have a question from Christian in Boston and there is absolutely no problem with a volunteer helping a museum put together the CAP application if you want to list yourself as the project contact you can do that do you want to list someone at the museum as the project contact that's fine but yeah we actually encourage museums to have as many people as possible involved in putting together that application because there are a lot of questions on there like I mean what is your budget we want to know all about your staffing, how many buildings do you have that house collections how many objects do you have in different in different collections type so it's something that will definitely need the input of a lot of different people at the museum and yes we definitely have a lot of museums that have kind of volunteer consultants or a board member or something like that helps them out with the application so that's definitely not a problem at all and Trisha hopefully you didn't already say this and I just completely missed it but how long should people anticipate taking to fill out this application it does vary a great deal it really depends on how easily accessible you have this information we do ask for things like what is your current what is your budget for your last fiscal year we want to know job descriptions of all the kind of professional staff people we want to know we've listed a number of different categories of collections types we want to know how many just an estimate of how many objects you have in each category that helps us and your assessors to figure out who will be a good fit for you for assessing those collections and we also ask things like what's the square footage of the buildings that you have that house collections again they can be estimates but these are things that might take you a little bit of time to track down the information if you have it all readily available you can put the application together in a few hours or it might take you a couple of weeks to track down everything so it really just depends on how easily accessible you have all this information okay great I just want to jump in for a second and say that finding all the information absolutely can take a fair amount of time but one of the nice things about the CAP application is that we don't require a narrative unless we're going through for a recap so it is a lot of finding and looking for this information arguing any case or anything like that the applications don't go through committee we don't decide based on the merits of your needs whether or not you get funding it's based on how much money that we have in the given year yes that is very true what Melanie said CAP is technically a non-competitive program so you don't have to argue why your museum deserves the money over another institution do you meet the Cap eligibility requirements and can we fund you those are the main two issues it looks like we have a question from Sharon she's curious that she's also a volunteer and would like to help her museum no paid employees, officers and other volunteers have probably never heard about any of these assessments do you think steps will be the best solution generally steps is steps is definitely AASLH the American Association for State and Mobile History designed steps to be kind of a first step on the road to things like I mean CAP and MAP and eventually I mean accreditation through AAM and that sort of thing so steps is a self-study so it does kind of require a lot more kind of motivation on the part of the institutional staff steps unlike MAP and CAP doesn't have staff will be checking up on you doesn't have deadlines so it is it can be easy to kind of get it to shove it to the back burner if other things come up but it is a really good kind of first step it is really good for institutions like I said who don't meet the Cap eligibility requirements if you're really kind of trying to make your take the first baby steps towards professionalization towards best practices and that sort of thing steps is a really great option it looks like that is all the questions that we have I'm going to go ahead and pull over an evaluation for this webinar if you guys don't mind filling it out we'd love to hear back from you and again if you do have any questions after this or you have questions as you're working on the grant applications I always feel free to email capadheritagepreservation.org and they will be there to help you this is our last webinar for this year so thank you all so much for joining us and thank you for joining us throughout the whole year it's been a busy year we appreciate it having you and having you participate in all these activities and Teresa and Melanie thank you thank you so much thank you Jenny for hosting this and thank you for providing all the technical support yeah thank you alright everyone have a fantastic afternoon stay warm and stay safe take care