Welcome to the IIC's discussion blog for the 3rd Roundtable ''The Plus/Minus Dilemma: The Way Forward in Environmental Guidelines' being held in conjunction with programs at the American Institute for Conservation's (AIC) 38th Annual Meeting, Conservation Contiuum: examining the past, envisioning the future, in Milwaukee, WI. 

My name is Amber Kerr-Allison and I am a Paintings Conservator and Kress Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Lunder Conservation Center in Washington, DC.  I am a first-time blogger and one of two on-site 'reporter-bloggers' who will be posting information and commentary on the IIC Roundtable discussion being held tomorrow evening.  I will be joined by Rose Daly, a second-year conservation fellow at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, concentrating in objects conservation.

In preparation for the 3rd IIC Roundtable I thought it might be useful to provide links to the IIC’s new initiative, Dialogues for the New Century: roundtable discussions on the conservation of cultural heritage in a changing world,where readers can download fully transcribed PDFs of the two previous roundtables as references:

IIC 1st Roundtable - Climate Change and Museum Collections   "Which was held in London during the 2008 IIC London Congress and attracted a large audience of conservators and related professionals, including many delegates from the Congress. A panel of four expert speakers explored the effects that global climate change is having on cultural heritage, and discussed how we can adapt to meet the coming challenges."

IIC 2nd Roundtable - Before the Unthinkable... Happens Again "Held at the National Museum of Western Art, in Tokyo and a panel of eight expert speakers explored the issues surrounding the protection of cultural heritage from earthquake damage and how this can be addressed."

This third roundtable discussion in the series has been organized by the IIC and is made possible with generous support by the Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation, the Getty Foundation, the Institute for Museum and Libary Services, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Rose and I look forward to extending our commentary of these proceeding so IIC blog readers can participate in this important discussion from points around the world.  We hope you will join us over the next few days and through the following weeks!  As with the other two roundtables, a transcription of these proceedings will be published by IIC after the event.

So stay tuned, become engaged in the discussion, and contribute your ideas and feedback to the forthcoming posts!