Photo: K. Klein

In November 1995 the Getty Conservation Institute, in cooperation with Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), offered its first preventive conservation course in Latin America. The course was held in Oaxaca, Mexico, for conservators and conservation scientists working in Latin America museums. The governor of the state of Oaxaca, Lic. Diodoro Carrasco Altamirano, addressed the course's 25 participants at the opening session. Nine countries were represented: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

The course focused on the technical and organizational factors that affect implementation of preventive conservation, combining technical information on the museum environment with a review of strategies for working with museum colleagues and other specialists to integrate preventive conservation into museum policies and operations. Course instructors included experts from Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and the United States.