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Museum Technician and Conservator

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AVG. SALARY

$50,330

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EDUCATION

Master's degree

Real-Life Activities

Real-Life Communication

Communication skills are very important for conservation restoration technicians, says Janelle Matz.

"Treatment decisions are not made in a vacuum," she says. "I need to discuss what the owner or curator has in mind before I decide what is needed. Often I need to convince the curator, owner or lender that their piece should be treated. This is done in a casual manner, and is usually verbal, but the underlying factor is that I need to convince someone that I know what I am talking about."

You are a conservation restoration technician working in a museum. There are several historical exhibits in the museum with people wearing clothing from previous eras. Part of your job is to treat and repair the clothing.

Early in your career, a senior restoration technician showed you how to treat clothing using a patch and a type of adhesive material. (Garments are treated both to preserve the item and to repair any damage that has occurred.) You have been treating garments in the way he showed you ever since.

Last year, you left the museum to take an internship in a large conservation laboratory. The most important thing you learned is that there is no one generic way to treat a piece of material. In each situation, you need to decide which solution works best.

Now you realize that the senior technician was taking your inexperience into account when he trained you in that particular method of treating garments. He wanted to teach you a method that was both easy to do and easy to reverse if you made a mistake.

When you return, the opportunity quickly arises to use your newly acquired skills. You are given a garment to treat. However, because the garment is going to be fitted on a mannequin, you realize that your usual treatment method isn't going to work. After doing a bit of research, you use a different patch and adhesive.

You write up a report of the treatment. After reading the report, the museum's curator sends you an e-mail. He wants to know why you switched treatment methods. You need to write a memo explaining your decision.