[NHCOLL-L:4989] Care of skin materials online class starts Oct 4

[Helen Alten]

  *MS224: Care of Leather and Skin Materials*
*Instructor:* Helen Alten
*Dates:* Oct 4 through Oct 29, 2010
*Location:* online at www.museumclasses.org

*Description: *Prior to the invention of plastics, skin materials were 
the flexible covering used for most objects - from bellows to books, 
carriages to desktops. Furs and skins are in almost every museum's 
collection, be it Natural History, History or Art. Caring for leather 
and skin materials demands an understanding of how and why they 
deteriorate. Care of Leather and Skin Materials offers a simplified 
explanation of the origin, chemistry and structure of leathers and 
skins. Students learn to identify leathers and surface finishes, 
determine their extent of deterioration, write condition reports, and 
understand the agents of deterioration that are harmful to leather and 
skins both in storage and on exhibit. Topics include preparing hide and 
skin materials for storage and exhibit, the use of archival materials 
and which ones might harm skin proteins, housekeeping techniques for 
large objects or books on open display, and three-dimensional supports 
for leather and skin to keep them from distorting. Integrated pest 
management and historical treatments will be covered, with a unit on 
hazardous materials applied to older skins and leather that might prove 
a danger to staff.  Students will receive a sample set of skin materials 
on which experiments may be carried out.

*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, and lectures 
throughout the United States on collection care topics. Helen Alten 
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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