Salvage Priorities: What's Next?
So, you’ve determined the parts of your collection that get prioritized in an emergency situation, but how do you communicate these priorities beyond your own institution? With the help of case studies from the field, Preventative Conservator Maddie Cooper presents on the latest thinking on this topic. In particular, she will focus on documenting priorities, working with first responders, the use of “Knox Boxes” for securing keys and institutional records, and the unique challenges a fire emergency brings to your salvage efforts.
While Maddie will touch briefly on why to develop salvage priorities and how to establish a “significance assessment” for your collection, a deeper dive on that topic can be found in her previous webinar: Picking Favorites: Strategies for Determining Salvage Priorities. Viewing this recording is not required to fully participate in this webinar.
This program addresses Focus Area #2: “education for action” of the FAIC’s Held In Trust Report on climate crisis and environmental impact.
About our speaker:
Madeline (Maddie) Cooper (she/her) is the Principal Conservator at M.C. Conservation Services. She has extensive experience in surveys, assessments, and teaching. From 2021–2025, Maddie served as Associate Preventive Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, where she conducted assessments, developed and taught workshops, and project-managed initiatives such as Preservation Services in Puerto Rico. She has over 10 years of professional collections care experience and previously held conservation and collections roles at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and the Wolfsonian–FIU. During graduate school, she worked with the Disaster Research Center, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Midwest Art Conservation Center. Maddie holds an M.S. in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and dual bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and Art Conservation from the University of Delaware.