An Isolated and Behind-the-Scenes Work Called Conservation

Abstract

Conservation is a type of work which requires specific skills, a lengthy experience, particular infrastructures, and arguably extensive time and money. In fact, preserving collections by managing all the aspects required is an important and mandatory task. However, as a developing country in tropical climate, Indonesia is still in a phase where financial aid, skillful experts, and moral support for preserving the cultural heritage are much less than needed. As a result of complex organizational dynamics, building a formal partnership for frequent collaborative conservation work between archives, libraries, and museums nevertheless is far from simple. On the other hand, engaging the community to participate in the practice is particularly challenging due to the nature of conservation work as an isolated activity within an exclusive ecosystem. This chapter aims to discuss whether developing community engagement and collaboration between LAM can serve as an alternative support to constructively improve current conditions and cope with the aforementioned issues.