Publication on heritage preservation

Preserving What Is Valued
Museums and First Nations
By Miriam Clavir
December, 272 pages

Preserving What Is Valued explores the concept of preserving
heritage.  It presents the conservation profession's code of ethics
and discusses four significant contexts embedded in museum
conservation practice:  science, professionalization, museum
practice, and the relationship between museums and First Nations
peoples.

Museum practice regarding handling and preservation of objects has
been largely taken as a given, and it can be difficult to see how
these activities are politicized.  Clavir argues that museum
practices are historically grounded and represent values that are
not necessarily held by the originators of the objects.  She first
focuses on conservation and explains the principles and methods
conservators practise.  She then discusses First Nations people's
perspectives on preservation, quoting extensively from interviews
done throughout British Columbia, and comparing the British Columbia
situation with that in New Zealand.

In the face of cultural repatriation issues, museums are attempting
to become more culturally sensitive to the original owners of
objects, forming new understandings of the "right ways" of storage
and handling of materials.  Miriam Clavir's work is important for
museum professionals, conservators, those working with First Nations
collections in auction houses and galleries, as well as students of
sociology and anthropology.

Miriam Clavir is Senior Conservator, the Museum of Anthropology,
University of British Columbia

For ordering information, please visit <URL:http://www.ubcpress.ca>

Berit Kraus
Manager, Advertising and Promotion, UBC Press


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