Subject: Chemical exchange and new AIC forum
The email thread about chemical exchanges last posted by Susan White is another example of how conservators (at least those participating on several of the AIC email lists) have been seeking ways to communicate across specialty group boundaries to discuss areas of common interest. AIC staff, board members and editors have been investigating different platforms over the past few months to determine what might meet our requirements for a flexible communication forum. After considering many options, the one that appears to best meet the needs requested by members in previous threads is a "Group" page on LinkedIn. I must admit that I had a LinkedIn profile for a long time before I figured out what to "do" there. It turns out that a number of other preservation and museum professional organizations are utilizing LinkedIn group pages to excellent effect and there are threads on many of these groups with substantive professional content. It is our hope that an AIC LinkedIn Group will allow conservators to communicate with colleagues across the spectrum of our specialty groups on issues that affect many of us--whether it is acquisition or disposition of materials, discussions on digital documentation, or challenges that affect us as a profession and as a professional organization. It will be for us to make use of it to meet our professional needs. We plan to be launching an AIC group page on LinkedIn in the summer of 2011 after the annual meeting. All members and staff of AIC will be invited to join. The group will be "closed" so the content will not be available to non-members. We'd like to encourage anyone who doesn't currently have a profile to take some time to set one up and familiarize yourself with the site. If you have questions about how we arrived at this decision or plans for the group page, please feel free to contact me off-list. We look forward to connecting with you online soon. Rachael Perkins Arenstein AIC e-Editor A.M. Art Conservation, LLC Art Conservation, Preservation and Collection Management 917-796-1764 *** Conservation DistList Instance 24:49 Distributed: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 Message Id: cdl-24-49-008 ***Received on Thursday, 21 April, 2011