December 2-4, 2026, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Instructors: Toshiaki Koseki and Jennifer McGlinchey Sexton

This workshop offers a comprehensive exploration of stain reduction techniques for gelatin silver photographs for conservators. Photographs are sometimes affected by contact with substances that cause staining in the paper, baryta and binder layers and are subsequently challenging to reduce or remove. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of stain reduction methodologies for photographs. The instructors will present treatment outlines that encourage participants to use problem solving techniques to formulate treatment plans using progressive methods to get the most controllable results. Note that this workshop will focus on treatment techniques for gelatin silver photographs, but these techniques may apply to other types of photographs.

Key areas of focus include:

• Assessment and documentation of stain types
• Decision making - risks and benefits of stain reduction treatments
• Selection of appropriate treatment procedures
• Hands-on practice with various reduction techniques
• Case studies

This workshop is appropriate for conservators looking for an opportunity to improve and practice stain reduction techniques in a safe space. Participants are encouraged to bring photographs from their own study collections for hands-on practice. These might include tape adhesive staining, oil or greases, or other inadvertent stains caused by liquids.

Interested individuals must apply by August 31, 2026. The registration fee is $570 for AIC members, $684 for non-members. Support for two international participants is available upon request in the application. Support includes free registration and a $1,000 travel stipend.

Funding for this program comes from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fund for Collaborative Workshops in Photograph Conservation and the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) Endowment for Professional Development, which was created by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is supported by donations from members of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and its friends. Workshops are made possible with the assistance of many AIC members, but no AIC membership dues were used to create or present this course.

FAIC relies on your contributions to support these and its many other programs. Learn more about donating to the foundation.

Interested individuals must complete an application by August 31, 2026. Applicants will be asked to describe their relationship with stain removal on gelatin silver photographs, including sharing an example of a success or failure, and how they would use and share the knowledge gained from this workshop with others. Priority will go to conservation professionals who will be working using stain removal techniques immediately following this workshop. Geographic diversity will also be considered.

Submit an application by clicking the "Apply" button below. Applications are submitted through our online application portal. When you enter the portal, you will be prompted to login to the system using a login ID and password. Please note that this system is not connected to your F/AIC profile on our general website.

Criteria for Review

• Experience and current interactions with the topic
• Need for the content (current challenges around the topic)
• Plan for dissemination of information gained
• The program seeks to support a diverse set of participants and will consider geographic location, place of employment type, and profession.

APPLY

November 10, 13, 16, 20, 2026, at 1-2pm ET
Speakers: Jennifer Daly, Lisa Goldberg, Lucy Midelfort, Lisa Worley
Coordinator: Kelly McCauley Krish

Join us for this online series of four webinars, exploring practices around the preservation of movable collections on display and in storage in historic house museums.

• Session 1: Primer on architectural preservation (Midelfort, November 10) - This introduction will give professionals working with movable collections in historic houses a foundational understanding of the components, functions, and risks to the building structure, along with basic guidance on how to maintain it.
• Session 2: Assessing and mitigating risks (Goldberg, November 13)- Drawing on decades of experience surveying historic houses, Goldberg will talk about how to identify issues, how to communicate risk when onsite, and methods for addressing these risks, as well as potential successes and limitations for solutions to identified issues. 
• Session 3: Practical approaches to implementation (Daly, November 16)- Using a large historic estate as an example, Daly will share how she has balanced interpretation and preservation of collections in an historic house. 
• Session 4: New horizons (Worley, November 20)- From her work at Ford House and developing master plans as well as serving with AASLH, Worley will discuss current and upcoming challenges and opportunities for house museums, and where participants can both get support and contribute to discussions.

Registration to participate is free and includes access to all four session. You do not need to attend all sessions to participate. The sessions will take place in Zoom and automated captions will be available. The session will be recorded and recordings will be available to registrants.

Recordings from the 2025 Handling and Maintenance of Historic House Collections webinars can be found here.

Funding for this program comes from a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support comes from the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) Endowment for Professional Development, which was also created by a grant from the Mellon Foundation and is supported by donations from members of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and its friends. Programs are made possible with the assistance of many AIC members, but no AIC membership dues were used to create or present this webinar series.

PMG is pleased to announce “Works in Progress,” a virtual event designed to foster open, collegial conversations about challenging conservation treatments and ongoing research in the field of photographic materials conservation.

This informal, two-hour session will provide a supportive space for conservators at all career stages, from students to senior professionals, to present a current treatment or research challenge and have a platform for constructive dialogue with colleagues. Whether you're navigating a complex treatment decision, exploring possible approaches, or looking for a fresh perspective, this forum offers an opportunity to think through difficult problems together.

The event will take place on Friday, October 23, 2026, from 2 pm - 4 pm ET / 11 am - 1 pm PT.  

To encourage candid conversation, sessions will not be recorded, and participants are asked to respect the confidential nature of the discussions by not sharing presentation materials or notes outside the group.

Whether you're looking to present a challenging case or learn from colleagues' experiences, we hope you will join us for this opportunity to exchange ideas and strengthen our community.

Interested in presenting? Sign up here: https://forms.gle/syzr6ANeuwxXSx5a8 Depending on interest in participation, three to four presenters will be selected for this event and time will be allotted for discussion around each project. Please submit by September 9th and we will inform participants by the 11th. 

Insurance planning should be part of your emergency response plan. A critical factor to consider is how you'll pay for the services you need to recover. During this presentation, we'll cover the types of insurance policies available, including building, collections, general liability, extra expense, and business interruption. We will also cover what the policies typically include and what they don't. You will develop an understanding of how insurance transactions work and how to make them work for you, including a review of a typical contract and review of the terms. We will discuss working with your insurance agent to ensure you get the best advice and support. If insurance is your means of recovering from a disaster, then a basic understanding of how it works is essential. The instructor will include examples and case studies. 

Join the AIC Sustainability Committee on October 14, 2026 at 12:00 pm EDT as Laura Lupton, founder of Field Forms, discusses the opportunities exhibitions offer for piloting dynamic environmental control following the BIZOT green protocol. The climate crisis is upon us, and cultural organizations bear a responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The 2023 Bizot green protocol refresh calls for cultural organizations to rethink exhibition and loan practices to reduce GHG emissions. As cultural heritage organizations consider adopting the BIZOT green protocol, exhibitions offer opportunities to pilot updated conditions by thoughtfully strategizing checklists and loan agreements. Lupton has worked with several museums to successfully plan exhibitions that allow for wider temperature and relative humidity set points that are more energy efficient, both saving money and reducing emissions. 

Join the AIC Architectural Specialty Group (ASG) and the APTI Delaware Valley Chapter for Conservators in a Global Context, a joint webinar series exploring architectural conservation practice around the world. Learn from leading conservators, architects, and other heritage professionals as they share diverse perspectives, approaches, and experiences from around the world.

The series kicks off on September 23rd at 12:00 PM US/EST with Shixin Zhao presenting on “Understanding Change: New Ways to Assess Climate Risk for Cultural Heritage.”  

Stay tuned for subsequent speakers and dates, which will be announced across AIC/ASG community pages and APTI-DVC email lists and social media channels. Members of AIC/ASG or APT-DVC get free access to this webinar series! Non-members can join for $10 for each webinar.

Our Monthly Member Meetup is a series of hour-long monthly events that we’ll host second Fridays at 2pm ET. Topics may cover sustainability, private practice, volunteering, the wiki, emergency planning, introductions to our various committees and groups, and more. Our goal is to offer you a social outlet and way to connect with other members. We welcome suggestions for topics and guest hosts! Send us your ideas at [email protected]. 

Review our past meetups:

• 2025 Member Meetup Series
• 2024 Member Meetup Series

Shutting down a private practice is a topic that all conservation professionals will face, whether they are shifting to employment in an institution, scaling back to make room for life issues that pull on their time or simply retiring at the end of a long career. Some have small practices that are just them and their workbenches and some have obligations to employees and landlords. For all conservation professionals, the questions surrounding how to gracefully and responsibly shut down a business can be complicated. 

The first webinar in the series will focus on legal issues surrounding the disposal of business entities as well as property. We are pleased to have as our speaker Karl Means, an attorney in the Washington, DC area who is a member of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA) and specializes in this topic.

This webinar is free to AIC members.

Sunsetting was not part of the Software Preservation Network’s founding conversation. Organizations are built to last — or at least that's the implicit assumption baked into most strategic plans, member recruitment pitches, and grant applications. But what happens when an organization has done what it set out to do? Or when the ecosystem has shifted in ways that make continuation less meaningful than closure? Or when the honest answer is that the energy, resources, and community trust carried by an organization would do more good somewhere else?

This is the account of an organization at the end of its lifecycle, and how we’re embracing this final act and working to preserve everything worth keeping. Through this presentation, we hope to communicate the importance of developing a sunsetting strategy, share strategies for composting resources to bring new life to the work in the future, and how we're still working towards community development as we close down operations.

Join Chelle Sanders and their work to facilitate a graceful transition.

Museums, libraries, and archives have been boxing collections since time immemorial. Offering protection from airborne pollutants and mishandling, boxes have also served as buffers, reducing fluctuations of relative humidity in the storage microenvironment. 

At the same time, efforts to maintain and inspire access have often been at odds with the closed box concept. Our two speakers, Angie Yvarra McGrew at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford, and Stephanie Gowler at Northwestern University Libraries, have been exploring solutions to this conundrum in very creative ways. In select situations, they have also included environmental data gathering in their design processes. Each will present their work for about 20 minutes, and we will take questions at the end.  

Organized by the AIC Sustainability Committee, this webinar is the 11th in a series of Conversations with Change Makers, where we address energy use and the environmental impact of the buildings in which cultural heritage is stored, exhibited, and studied.