Workers in museums and other cultural heritage organizations are exposed to the same occupational hazards as other industries; however, it is our interactions with collections that introduces unique health and safety scenarios where planning for and mitigation to control these situations may be unfamiliar to us, our employers, and often health and safety specialists. 

This course will use hazards within collections to introduce participants to the basic principles of occupational health and safety; the role of health and safety regulations; the identification and control of hazards; and planning and implementing risk management strategies. 

Participants can participate in weekly assignments that will culminate in completing a risk management plan for one hazard (or hazardous collection material) that they have identified within their organization. Course content will be delivered via Zoom meeting which will allow participants to view lectures and interact with course instructors and discussion leaders through small group breakout rooms. 

Please note: While understanding the structure of how to deal with issues such COVID-19 will be discussed, this course will not focus on COVID-19 response in collections. 

Webinar 1: Understanding Hazards in Museums - July 20 1:00pm-2:30pm ET
A general overview of the principles of occupational health and safety with emphasis on the particular hazards found within museums and other cultural heritage and collecting organizations.

Webinar 2: Understanding Roles Responsibilities - July 27 1:00pm-2:30pm ET 
An introduction to how federal, state, and local health and safety rules and regulations apply to the workplace and how to identify the proper health and safety professionals to help with issues specific to particular hazards.

Webinar 3: Risk Assessment - August 3 1:00pm-2:30pm ET
A basic introduction to how to identify hazards within the workplace and collections, what exposure means, and how to understand the risk from that exposure.

Webinar 4 & 5: Risk Management - August 10 & 17 1:00pm-2:30pm ET 
An overview of general procedures and policies for the mitigation and control of exposure once hazards have been identified and assessed, includes: proper object handling techniques, selection of personal protective equipment, establishing hazard communication, and understanding waste disposal.

Webinar 6: Specific Examples-August 24 1:00pm-2:30pm ET
A lightning round of case studies highlighting collection-specific problems with health and safety in collections care.

Early Bird Registration Fee (on or before July 8): $99

Standard Registration (after July 8): $149

Our Course Coordinator is Kerith Koss Schrager, Objects Conservator/Owner, The Found Object Art Conservation

Connecting to Collections Care courses are made possible in part by generous support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Texas Collections Emergency Resource Alliance (TX-CERA) and the Houston Arts Alliance Response to Polar Vortex Uri, February 2021. 

Transform 2021

AIC/SPNHC Joint Virtual Meeting

Dates

• May 3-7, 2021 (Pre-sessions and Workshops)
• May 10 to June 24, 2021  (Main Conference)

Program & Schedule

We have grouped sessions into subject modules, which we will present in Zoom (with automated closed captioning). For more information about the meeting theme, structure and schedule of sessions, see Program & Schedule.

Joint Meeting

We are pleased to be holding a joint annual meeting with the Society for Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) whose members can read through our Guide to SPNHC Sessions.

Virtual Meeting

With the most positive vaccine projections having the majority of US residents vaccinated by early summer, our in-person meeting in early May would have still been unsafe, so we opted for a virtual meeting in 2021 and moved our commitment with the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville from 2021 to the 51st Annual Meeting in 2023.

Registration

Registration for the 2021 AIC/SPNHC Joint Virtual Annual Meeting is open! All registrations are full registrations that include all sessions and access to the recordings. If you are new user, create an account (free) and then log in to register for the meeting or submit the form below. See instructions below for more information.

 Registration Form

 New User Registration Instructions

Rates

Member dues must be paid in full by January 31st of the calendar year in which the meeting takes place to receive the member rate. You have to log in to this site to register at the early rates and use the discount codes.

• SPNHC Members: Use Discount Code SPNHC at checkout to receive the member rate/ SPNHC Student Members: Use the code SPNHCstudent 
• Speakers: AIC Members use 2021Speaker, Non-AIC members use 2021SpeakerNM
• AIC Student and Post-graduate Members: Use STUDENT21(student rates are for student members). 
• Non-member Students: use the code nonmemberstudent

Administrative & Group Registrations

If you need to register someone other than yourself or a group of people, please use the form or instructions below. If you wan to register 10 or more people, email us for a bulk registration discount and streamlined processing at meetings@culturalheritage.org. 

 Registration Form

 Instructions for Registering Another Individual

Rollover Registrations

If you registered for the 2020 Annual Meeting and chose to roll over your registration to an in-person meeting, you had the option to select rollover to 2021 or 2022. See below for details on how this will work now that the 2021 meeting is virtual.

Option 1 (default): Your 2020 meeting registration will be rolled over to 2022, so you can use it at our next in-person meeting, the 2022 Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. You will need to register for the 2021 virtual meeting separately. The 2021 AIC/SPNHC Joint Virtual Meeting is less expensive than an in-person AIC Annual Meeting with early registration at $125 for regular members and $75 for student members. You do not have to do anything to receive Option 1. If we do not hear from you by June 15, we will automatically roll your registration over to 2022. 

Option 2: You can use your 2020 rollover registration to register for the 2021 AIC/SPNHC Joint Virtual Meeting. It will be a one to one trade. As a thank you, you will receive a 30% discount off registration rates for the 2022 or 2023 Annual Meeting. Email meetings@culturalheritage.org to use Option 2 or if you have any questions. 

Refunds

Our refund policy attempts to balance the needs of being compassionate and flexible with members who find at the last minute that they can no longer attend the meeting with the need to keep registration rates as low as possible for all members.

More information

Attendees Assisting Attendees Campaign

As we plan and create the 2021 AIC/SPNHC Joint Virtual Annual Meeting, we recognize that some of our colleagues are experiencing financial hardship at a time when we most need to feel a connection to our community. We strive to create as many opportunities as possible to assist with registration fees, and many of our members have offered to contribute to these efforts. If you are in a position to do so, please consider supporting your colleagues by contributing to this campaign.

More information

Exhibitors

We are accepting exhibitor registrations for our virtual meeting  Connect with your best customers in our virtual exhibit hall. 

• Virtual Exhibiting in 2021
• Meet the Exhibitors
• Plan for 2022 in Los Angeles!

For more details, pricing, and a registration packet, please email meetings@culturalheritage.org.

Goals

This platform centralizes resources relating to how and why we make mistakes, and it aims to cultivate understanding of why it’s important to talk about and learn from mistakes when they do occur. 

Lifelong learning is an integral part of our profession. Let’s build a healthier culture together that empowers us to speak openly about our mistakes and learn from one another. 

Background

In 2017, AIC’s Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN) held a webinar titled “Picking Up the Pieces: Accepting, Preventing, and Learning from Mistakes as an Emerging Conservation Professional.” With momentum from the webinar, some of the organizers and participants subsequently published an article titled “Oh, $#*%! Making Mistakes—and Learning from Them” in the March 2018 issue of AIC News. This led to the conception of an event at the AIC Annual Meeting to provide a broader venue for conservation professionals of all career stages to share mistakes and normalize this type of discussion. The inaugural “Mistakes” session, formally titled “A Failure Shared is Not a Failure: Learning from Our Mistakes,” was held at the 2018 AIC Annual Meeting in Houston and has since been reprised annually. When the 2020 AIC Annual Meeting went virtual, so did the Mistakes Session; a recording can be found on this page and AIC’s YouTube channel.

We invite you to explore content relating to these events and to the broader theme of making mistakes - including TED talks and articles - in this self-guided learning module. 

Please reach out if you know of additional resources to add to this list.