As a professional conservator for over 14 years and having led another life as a musuem professional in interpretation before that, I will be happy to answer this question as best I can. "Conservation" is a process, action, or decision that affect sites, monuments, buildings, and collections and their environment. It can range from the best known aspects of conservation (e.g.scientific analysis, treatment, and condition surveys) to the lesser but often vital aspects of preventive conservation (environmental monitoring, risk assessment, integrated pest management, proper light control, archival housing and storage, and even proper handling). "Preservation" is a larger issue - in the sense that it can involve the preservation of landscapes, historic strructures and sites, monuments, collections, as well as historical data, ideas, and skills. In library practice, for example, microfilming a collection of historic papers is "preserving" the inherent intellectual value of that collection; while physically performing a conservation treatment, to mitigate residual acids in the papers or rehousing the papers in archival folders, is "conserving" the actual physical artifacts that comprise the documents. Of course, to the genreral public, as soon as you mention "Conservation" they think that you are an environmentalist - someone who saves small nearly extinct creatures or trees. It is one of those things that sometimes amuses but never daunts those in my field. It reminds me of all of the confusion between "Authentic" and "Original" that I often heard when I worked on the Interpretive side of things.... Cheers! Dave David Harvey Artifacts 2930 South Birch Street Denver, Colorado 80222 303-300-5257 [log in to unmask] ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).