Unpaid graduate internships

This is a general comment on the issue of unpaid graduate
internships and lack of paid jobs in the field of conservation.  It
may be a comfort to some of the new graduates that some of the
established conservators of our day wrote similar letters to the AIC
Newsletter in the 1970s and 80s.  These letters state the same
frustrations.  It might be helpful to hold an informal meeting at an
AIC meeting like the one on pesticides in 2000 which was one of the
most informative meetings I have been at.  I have also expressed my
position on this issue and the educational dilemma in the 1999, v.
24, #4 issue of AIC News, pages 7-9.  As I stated then, I think the
only answer is to press donors to provide endowments to conservation
departments since museum directors seem to believe that collections
management and conservation are their secondary responsibilities.
They seem to assume that the works will preserve themselves.  Jobs
in conservation, and here I mean real jobs with benefits can only
come about by dedicated budgets, and this is a thing of the past.

Niccolo Caldararo
Director and Chief Conservator
Conservation Art Service


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:51
                Distributed: Thursday, January 29, 2004
                       Message Id: cdl-17-51-009
                                  ***