These organisations offer short courses in specialised areas, aimed at practising conservators looking to enhance their skills.
Gold Street Studios (Australia)
Gold Street Studios offers workshops to those wishing to understand and enjoy the art, craft and science of traditional, alternative and historic photographic processes from professional instructors. Located in Trentham East, Victoria, Australia.
The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies (USA)
The Campbell Center offers professional development courses in collections care and historic preservation, as well as conservation refresher courses for mid-career professionals. These courses require a varying level of expertise, from basic core courses that require little previous experience, to conservation refresher courses that require mid-level professional experience. A certificate program was developed in 2005, which offers three levels of certification.
The American Academy of Bookbinding
The American Academy of Bookbinding holds intensive courses in the fine art of leather binding and related subjects, such as restoration of cloth and leather bindings, treatments of textblocks and sewing and finishing techniques for book conservation.
American Institute for Conservation (AIC)
The AIC offers a variety of online courses, workshops and study tours for practising conservators. Topics range from marketing for conservation, estimating conservation projects to workshops in mastering inpainting, adhesive for conservation and conservation of plastics and rubber.
Centre for Photographic Conservation (UK)
The Centre offers a variety of photographic-based workshops, including identification of historic photographic processes, preservation of colour photographs and storage systems for photographic materials.
Centro del Bel Libro (Switzerland)
As well as courses in fine bookbinding and historic bookbinding structures, the Centro del Bel Libro offers courses dealing with a variety of related topics, such as seal conservaiton, conservation of vellum documents and historical sewing techniques.
The Conservation Centre, New York University
Each year the Conservation Center offers a variety of workshops in conservation technology and collections care, which are open to conservators, artists, art historians, archivists, museum professionals, science professionals, and students. The full-day workshops range from one to five days in length. Classroom lectures are combined with hands-on laboratory practice to familiarize participants with current methodologies.
Adventures in Preservation
The Adventures in Preservation network works in a number of countries around the world on a variety of project types, including preservation of historic buildings and landscapes. Projects include conservation work on a 15th century cloister in Italy, a stone-slab farmhouse in North Dakota, USA and a vineyard in Slovenia.
ICCROM
ICCROM offers a variety of courses around the world, including the international course on the conservation of Japanese Paper, held every two years.
The Institute of Conservation (ICON)
The ICON site lists a number of professional development workshops offered by a variety of providers. Examples include workshops in Islamic bindings and East Asian sewing structures offered by the British Library, and the Building Conservation Summer School, offered by the Royal Instituion of Chartered Surveyors.
International Academic Projects (IAP)
IAP offer courses in Australia, the UK, the US and Europe. Their Professional Development Programme of short courses offers courses in conservation, collections care, archaeology and museum studies. IAP also offers the Chemistry For Conservators distance learning program by correspondence.
Montefiascone Project (Italy)
The Montefiascone Conservation Project was originally conceived in order to save the virtually derelict library of the Seminario Barbarigo, but expanded to include the archive and the furnishings and fabric of the library itself. A program of summer schools runs in parallel with the library project.
National Conservation Centre – UK
Conservation technologies holds regular two-day courses offering students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience of laser cleaning. The course includes an introduction to light and lasers, laser safety, how laser cleaning works, practical laser cleaning and test cleaning on samples bought by participants. The course comprises lectures, case studies, practical work and discussion.
LYRASIS Library Network – USA
LYSASIS offer courses relating to the preservation and management of digital collections.
University of Victoria – Canada
The Cultural Resource Management Program at the University of Victoria provides a number of professional development opportunities, including workshops in conserving historic structures and heritage conservation planning and leadership.
West Dean College (UK)
West Dean College offers a variety of professional development program, including building conservation masterclasses, courses on the conservation of building interiors and sites, conservation of transport and industrial collections, leather, upholstery and many other topics.