Qualifications for conservation technicians

I have a very experienced but unqualified assistant; as he is deaf
from birth, his communications skills are poor, so he has seldom
been able to benefit from training courses. Even an NVQ would
involve a lot of interpretation and help with communication. He is
very much the odd-job-man of the office, and the lowest on our
particular ladder. However, we may be moving to new premises soon,
and all our jobs would change with the move. His might change most
of all, and we want to manage that change to his best advantage. One
option is to try to re-design his job to that of a conservation
technician.

I would like to ask conservators in other establishments and
countries what they would look for in a conservation technician, and
how they would assess the necessary skills. What work should a
technician know how to do? What judgements should he be expected to
make? How would a technician's salary compare with a sole or senior
conservator's?

    **** Moderator's comments:
        According to AIC's "Qualifications Task Force Draft Report"
        <URL:http://aic.stanford.edu/geninfo/qtfreport.pdf>

            "The Collections Care Task Force (CCTF) of AIC, formed in
            1994, was charged with developing guidelines for
            training of conservation technicians. ..."

        I don't know if the CCTF issued a report, but I believe they
        are still active. See
        <URL:http://aic.stanford.edu/members/task.html> for contact
        info. There has also been some discussion on the DistList.
        See the archives in Conservation OnLine
        <URL:http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/
            byform/mailing-lists/cdl/>

        The above URL has been wrapped for email. There should be no
        newline.

Deborah Rohan
Conservator
Cambridgeshire Archives Service


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:54
                 Distributed: Thursday, March 27, 2003
                       Message Id: cdl-16-54-015
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