Museum Technicians and Conservators

What Does a Museum Technicians and Conservators Do?

Restore, maintain, or prepare objects in museum collections for storage, research, or exhibit. May work with specimens such as fossils, skeletal parts, or botanicals; or artifacts, textiles, or art. May identify and record objects or install and arrange them in exhibits. Includes book or document conservators.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• 1Install, arrange, assemble, and prepare artifacts for exhibition, ensuring the artifacts' safety, reporting their status and condition, and identifying and correcting any problems with the set up.
• 2Repair, restore, and reassemble artifacts, designing and fabricating missing or broken parts, to restore them to their original appearance and prevent deterioration.
• 3Clean objects, such as paper, textiles, wood, metal, glass, rock, pottery, and furniture, using cleansers, solvents, soap solutions, and polishes.
• 4Photograph objects for documentation.
• 5Determine whether objects need repair and choose the safest and most effective method of repair.
• 6Prepare artifacts for storage and shipping.
• 7Enter information about museum collections into computer databases.
• 8Recommend preservation procedures, such as control of temperature and humidity, to curatorial and building staff.

Required Skills

• Active Listening
• Reading Comprehension
• Speaking
• Adobe Acrobat
• Adobe Creative Cloud software
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Photoshop
• Autodesk AutoCAD
• Gallery Systems EmbARK
• Microsoft Active Server Pages ASP
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Office software

Museum Technicians and Conservators Salary