AIC's 45th Annual Meeting

One of the most frequent problems lies in the damage of historic objects caused by poor handling by the maintenance staff once the restoration is finish and the value of the heritage is enhanced. The lack of a common language between the two parties, conservators and maintenance people, contributes to the problem (or the problem stated above). The Training Preservation Assistants Program provides the necessary tools to teach General Services Staff at Heritage Buildings so that they can work as assistants in this field. The project seeks to offer simple but practical information and basic training. The attendees will be introduced to the basic notions for the preservation of Heritage Buildings' materials as well as to the actual preservation criteria and daily maintenance of the organizations that keep and safeguard the works of art. Thus, they will be able to recognize the general aspects of the different supports and the causes of their deterioration. They will be nurtured on the importance of the implementation of maintenance protocols for and their application for preservation. Finally, the students will be trained in rescue procedures in emergency preparedness and recover planing in case of a disaster The project consists of two curricular designs independent from each other. The first is oriented towards a formal and vast training in which the assistant will be presented with the principals of conservation and advanced knowledge of constitution materials, adequate handling of objects when performing daily maintenance tasks, basic notions of chemistry for understanding the products to apply in the daily preservation and the making of a cleaning and daily maintenance protocol. Finally, the students will be trained in rescue procedures in emergency preparedness and recover planing in case of a disaster. The curricula has 160 teaching hours to learn about the various materiales componing the historic building and its objects, including furniture, molding among others. The second curricular is design for training the staff in the basic notions of preservation for its immediate implementation. This curricular design stresses or highlights the importance of receiving a higher and more extensive instruction and will only be given as training without formal certification. Sponsored by the Argentine Association of Conservators and Restorers (ASACOR) participants to this program will receive formal certification issued by the Argentine Ministry of Labor. Through the certification from the Ministry of Labour, our intention is to make this training mandatory to perform such activities in heritage buildings . (As well as providing this training both nationally and internationally. During the 1 Regional Conference organized by ApoyOnline, held in Medellin, our colleagues expressed their intereste on our program as they confront the same type of problems on their instuttion. For this reason our program is ready to provide international training.