AIC membership categories

This is in response to Julie Page's comments (Conservation DistList
Instance: 22:58 Sunday, April 12, 2009) on my reference to the
incident at the California Historical Society and an email that
implies it was sent to me but was not.  This is of no importance,
but I did try and find out about the firm and its association with
the event at the Historical Society.  Sometimes people are not
available and often do not respond to inquiries.

However, the San Francisco Chronicle article on the event and
response did not mention conservators but only the emergency
response firm.  The firm has no conservators on staff and that was
my point.

As for training for such responses and disaster resources, that was
not my point, rather it was that the firm was not one that even
listed a conservator or the AIC or anything else related to
conservation.

Do I think that no conservators or conservation firms in the Bay
Area would have been capable of responding to the disaster as well
as the chosen firm? No, I do not. I have been called in by such
firms after the fact to look at what they have done or try and deal
with problems and I think the field of disaster response varies in
professionalism, and yet I think that conservators can deal with
these problems and should be on site when they occur.

So in response to the claim that had I known more about the event I
would have felt differently, the answer is "no" a conservator should
have been called, period.  The firm should have a conservator at
least on call, period. If the AIC staff is recommending firms who
have no conservators to do this work then *that* is a problem.

Niccolo Caldararo
Director and Chief Conservator
Conservation Art Service


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:60
                 Distributed: Saturday, April 18, 2009
                       Message Id: cdl-22-60-009
                                  ***