Preservation of the Collections
In August 2022, a conservator position was established at the Office for Academic Heritage, Sientific an Art Collections to assume ongoing responsibility for the care and preservation of the technical and scientific collections of TU Dresden. Unfortunately, the conservator position is currently vacant. Therefore the Office for Academic Heritage is currently unable to carry out its collection preservation and restoration duties. For futher questions, please contact
Filling this new position had been a significant step towards the long-term protection and sustainable preservation of these unique university collections. The expertise gained through this process plays a key role in ensuring the ongoing preservation and cataloging of the collections and making them accessible for academic teaching and research as well as for an interested public in the long term.
In addition, the position focuses on the conservation of objects loaned to other institutions. This includes condition reporting, ensuring that objects are suitable for loan and carefully monitoring all loans to protect them as effectively as possible during transportation and exhibition. Conservation standards are applied in order to prevent damage.
Another key area of work is preventive conservation, which aims to prevent potential damage to the objects. This includes the creation and maintenance of optimal storage facility conditions, the implementation of collection-specific monitoring and requires cooperation with the collection managers.
As part of this new focus, a specially equipped conservation studio has been set up to enable the professional implementation of planned conservation and restoration measures.
The tasks described are a central component of the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections' strategy to preserve the university collections as a valuable cultural and scientific heritage in the long term and to secure and further develop their potential for use by current and future generations. The close interlinking of conservation-restoration, conservation loan management and preventive conservation creates a comprehensive basis for the sustainable protection of the collections and the strengthening of their scientific, cultural and social significance.