Collections care terms can be utterly confusing, even among trained museum professionals. A term a registrar may use could be completely different from a director or an art preparator, and may not ultimately have detrimental outcomes for the misused term. But misusing the terms conservation, preservation, or restoration could leave your collections items or personal artifacts in the wrong hands for care.
What is Conservation?
Conservation encompasses all the actions taken toward the long-term care of cultural heritage. Activities include examination, documentation, treatment, and preventive care, supported by research and education. Conservators are the trained professionals who execute these actions. Conservators typically help to preserve the original work, in conjunction with adding materials or making repairs as part of treatment, which are typically reversible. The age of the piece and the artist’s original intent are influential factors in treatment planning.
What is Preservation?
Preservation is the protection of cultural property through activities that minimize chemical and physical deterioration and avoids damage to prevent loss of informational content. The primary goal of preservation is to prolong the existence of cultural property. Preservation can include activities like monitoring light levels and environments, including temperature and humidity. A popular use of this term refers to the steps taken to preserve or save historic architecture and the built environment.
What is Restoration?
Restoration is actually a type of treatment performed by a conservator, that is intended to return cultural property to a known or assumed state, often based on historical research or a specific time period of a piece that was negatively “restored” previously. The easiest way I often explain restoration to someone is that it’s the type of work that is often done to old gas pumps, gumball machines, or vintage cars. Things can be stripped down, scraped, repainted, and made to look like “as new” or “as manufactured,” which typically isn’t the goal of treatment by a conservator. Cultural property should reflect its age and history and treatment should incorporate these aspects. In recent popular culture, there have been quite a few international examples of bad restorations performed by untrained people with good intentions that wildly circulated the internet. These are always great examples to use when speaking to people about conservation, because it sets a very clear and digestible example of what can go wrong when an item isn’t cared for by a trained professional.
To Further Complicate Things…
“Restorer” is often the term used in Europe or for European trained conservators. Restorer can also be used to designate a person who takes things to an “as new” or “as manufactured” state in the U.S. “Conservator” is often used as the preferred term in the U.S. or to refer to trained conservators in North America. U.S.-based conservators typically have far more training and experience than someone operating as a restorer in the United States. That may mean they also have a difference in their ethics and methods. When in doubt on what type of professional you may need or for more information on conservation, I always recommend folks visit the American Institute for Conservation’s (AIC) webpage, or I suggest that they find a trained conservation professional to ask advice. Or to hire a trained professional conservator for a project, it can be worth visiting AIC’s Find a Conservator Page.