[NHCOLL-L:4165] online Plastics in museums seminar for one week

[Helen Alten]

Next week there is an opportunity to discuss modern materials in your museum:

MS001: The Problem with Plastics (short course)
Dates: Jan 19-23, 2009 (one week only)
Price: $75
Instructor: Helen Alten
Location: online at www.museumclasses.org

Description:
As we march boldly toward the 22nd century, artifact collecting 
includes that most fragile of materials - plastic. Not only is it in 
our collections, but it's used to house our collections, too. What 
problems have you seen? What problems have others seen? What 
materials are best? What can we, as caretakers, do to minimize 
long-term damage? Join Helen in this mini-course for discussing care 
and deterioration of plastics. Bring any questions you have about 
plastics in your museum.

Logistics:
Participants in The Problem with Plastics will read literature and 
participate in two one-hour chats to discuss plastics deterioration 
and preservation. Each student should read course materials and 
prepare questions or comments to share with the other students in the 
chat. This is a mini-course and takes no more than 10 hours of a 
student's time.

To reserve a spot in the course, please pay at 
<http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html>http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html 
If you have trouble, please contact Helen Alten at helen at collectioncare.org


The Instructor:
Helen Alten, is the Director of Northern States Conservation Center 
and its chief Objects Conservator. For nearly 30 years she has been 
involved in objects conservation, starting as a pre-program intern at 
the Oriental Institute in Chicago and the University Museum of the 
University of Pennsylvania. She completed a degree in Archaeological 
Conservation and Materials Science from the Institute of Archaeology 
at the University of London in England. She has built and run 
conservation laboratories in Bulgaria, Montana, Greece, Alaska and 
Minnesota. She has a broad understanding of three-dimensional 
materials and their deterioration, wrote and edited the quarterly 
Collections Caretaker, maintains the popular www.collectioncare.org 
web site, lectures throughout the United States on collection care 
topics, was instrumental in developing a state-wide protocol for 
disaster response in small Minnesota museums, has written, received 
and reviewed grants for NEH and IMLS, worked with local foundations 
funding one of her pilot programs, and is always in search of the 
perfect museum mannequin. She has published chapters on conservation 
and deterioration of archeological glass with the Materials Research 
Society and the York Archaeological Trust, four chapters on different 
mannequin construction techniques in Museum Mannequins: A Guide for 
Creating the Perfect Fit (2002), preservation planning, policies, 
forms and procedures needed for a small museum in The Minnesota 
Alliance of Local History Museums' Collection Initiative Manual, and 
is co-editor of the penultimate book on numbering museum collections 
(still in process) by the Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma. Helen Alten 
has been a Field Education Director, Conservator, and staff trainer. 
She began working with people from small, rural, and tribal museums 
while as the state conservator for Montana and Alaska. Helen 
currently conducts conservation treatments and operates a 
conservation center in Charleston, WV and St. Paul, MN.
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