The Conservation Laboratory actively supports and promotes the
Peabody Museum’s mission to preserve and protect the collections
entrusted to its care. The care and treatment of specimens in the
Museum is guided by the principle that the integrity of an object
should be preserved in every possible way. Because the Peabody
collections are used primarily for research, our approach to the
treatment of the collections is conservative. We are always aware of
the specimen’s research potential and whenever possible nothing is done
to impair or compromise it.
The Care of the Collections
Conservation as Research Tool
History of Conservation at the Yale Peabody Museum
Related Links in Conservation
Conservation
is concerned with the overall preservation of all the Museum’s
collections. This means that the conservator is involved in all aspects
of collections care and handling. How specimens are stored is of as
much interest to the conservator as what materials will be in the same
exhibit case with them or whether they will travel by truck or airplane
to an institution borrowing them for study or exhibition. Conservation
work therefore is varied and multi-faceted, involving both active treatment and passive treatment, analysis of materials and the development of new treatment techniques.