April 17, 2020
Foundation for Advancement in Conservation
The Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) has been awarded a three-year cooperative agreement totaling $500,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to evaluate current national infrastructure in conservation and make recommendations to strengthen preservation of cultural heritage for present and future generations. The Held in Trust project will assess the current state of, and challenges facing, the preservation of the cultural heritage of our nation as it approaches its 250th anniversary in 2026. The Image Permanence Institute is pleased to be a participant and member of the Advisory Council for the project.
Held in Trust is part of a major NEH initiative, A More Perfect Union: NEH Special Initiative Advancing Civic Education and Commemorating the Nation’s 250th Anniversary. “Our nation’s cultural heritage collections—the records and writings that document both the momentous acts and private thoughts of the past; the artifacts, artwork, and ephemera left to us from previous eras—are foundational to our understanding of our shared American history,” said NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede. “The FAIC Held in Trust project will create a roadmap to equip conservation professionals with the skills and resources they need to safeguard these national treasures so that they remain available for future generations to study, appreciate, and admire. NEH is pleased to support FAIC in this urgently important undertaking.”
Guided by a steering committee and an advisory council and in collaboration with NEH staff, the project will comprise three years of research, discussion, and dissemination activities. “We are thrilled to partner with NEH to highlight the crucial role conservation plays in preserving America’s primary source materials that are integral for humanities scholarship and dissemination,” said FAIC Executive Director Eryl Wentworth, “as well to have the opportunity to address societal and environmental challenges currently facing our nation that directly impact the conservation profession and collections care.”
A core activity will be a national convening to take place in Washington, DC, in 2021, followed by a one-day program to be held at AIC’s 50th anniversary meeting in Los Angeles in 2022. These sessions will summarize progress made to date on identified action items and focus on project outcomes, long-term impacts, and next steps. The Held in Trust final report will serve as a roadmap for the field and will guide and shape future activities.
The Image Permanence Institute, part of RIT’s College of Art and Design, is a recognized world leader in the development and deployment of sustainable practices for the preservation of cultural heritage collections. The institute accomplishes this through a balanced program of research, education, products and services that meet the needs of individuals, companies and institutions.
The Foundation for Advancement in Conservation’s (FAIC) mission is to save cultural heritage for future generations, protecting it from decay and destruction. We advance research and education, lead treatment and collection care initiatives, and deploy conservation expertise to where it is most urgently needed. Our work empowers conservation professionals, strengthens cultural institutions, and engages stakeholders, including public audiences, as we work together to protect cultural heritage for humanity. For more information, visit www.culturalheritage.org.
In 2004, IPI released ClimateNotebook, the first desktop software designed specifically for libraries, archives, and museums to graph environmental data and generate reports with preservation analysis. In 2012, eClimateNotebook (eCNB) was launched. A web application that synthesized the strengths of ClimateNotebook, and IPI’s other preservation management tools (MyClimateData and PEMdata) into a single, unified platform.
The Image Permanence Institute has been awarded $315,854 from the National Endowment for the Humanities Research & Development grant program to support a three-year research project titled, Evaluating the Mechanical Stability of 3D Printed Materials to Inform Collections Care Decision Making for Preservation and Access.
IPI is looking for a new team member in a redefined Sustainable Preservation Specialist role. The Sustainable Preservation Specialist supports professionals working in collecting institutions with environmental monitoring and sustainable preservation practices. They assist collecting institutions with basic environmental monitoring and data analysis, advise on logger placement in collection storage and exhibition spaces, and provide instruction on the use of IPI’s data management and analysis software, eClimateNotebook.
Xinxin Li is IPI’s new 3D Design Assistant working under the supervision of Meredith Noyes, Research Scientist, as part of the IMLS-funded project Foundational Research to Inform Preservation Guidelines for the Creation, Collection, and Consumption of 3D Printed Objects in Museums. Xinxin is a MFA candidate in Industrial Design at RIT and comes to IPI after receiving her BFA in Industrial Design from Savannah College of Art and Design.