The Collections Care & Conservation Alliance presents
General Facility Report (webinar)
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
2:00-3:30 PM EDT
Details & registration at https://collectionscarealliance.org/workshops-events
The General Facility Report –
A must-have for a collection's reference library or "I need to know where the nearest fire hydrants are?!"
Originally designed primarily for lending and borrowing, the American Alliance of Museums' General Facility Report is the perfect place to capture all of your institution's important information -- infrastructure, lending history, storage facilities, and more. If your institution is renovating or retrofitting, it also serves as a guide to architects and contractors to understand your building's physical specifications.
Whether you use it as a lender to gather information on a borrowing institution, as a place to capture "institutional knowledge," or an aid to identifying questions about your institution, this document lends itself to be so much more once you get to know it.
Darlene Bialowski, who co-edited iterations of the report from 2008 through to the latest in 2019, will walk us through the report, discuss its evolution, and tell us how the document offers more than meets the eye.
Webinar attendees will have the opportunity to pose detailed follow up questions at a virtual
Conversation with Colleagues on Tuesday, August 25th from 12:00-1:00 pm EDT. All those who register for the webinar are invited to attend.
Pre-registration is required and a Zoom link for the meeting will be sent to you closer to the meeting date. Space in the workshop is limited to 100 participants. Please register by Monday, August 17th.
If you can't make it to the live event, you can still register for the workshop and we will send you the recording once it becomes available.
The cost of the virtual workshop is as follows:
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$15 for anyone who wishes to attend
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If you have applied for and been accepted as a Professional Affiliate Member of the CCCA or have made a donation of at least $25 this year as a Friend of the CCCA: $10
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If you have applied for and been accepted as an Emerging Professional or Student Member of the CCCA: FREE
Details & registration at https://collectionscarealliance.org/workshops-events
About our presenter:
Darlene Bialowski, principal of Darlene Bialowski Art Services, LLC, has been in the museum and cultural heritage preservation field for more than 25 years working first as a Curatorial Assistant at Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, MA; to being the sole Registrar for the then four Springfield Museums in Springfield, MA as well as overseeing for Springfield, two satellite exhibition sites at Smith & Wesson's headquarters and its Shooting Academy; to being an independent contract Registrar. After her years at Springfield she remained committed to the registrarial community and was invited to sit as co-editor to the General Facility Report (GFR) along with other museum colleagues and representatives from the fine arts industry. In 2010 she was elected Chair of AAM's Registrars Committee to represent the interests of nearly 1,000 members of the professional network.
Darlene is also an accredited member of the Appraisers Association of America with her appraisal specialties in fine and decorative arts. She is an author, lecturer and at one time simultaneously President of three cultural heritage preservation non-profits. Currently the Vice President, sitting as its inaugural President for six years, Darlene is a co-founder of the CCCA and she served as President for the Center for Painted Wall Preservation, currently sitting as an Advisor.
With her extensive backgrounds in the fields of collections care, art, cultural preservation, appraising and as a non-practicing paralegal, Darlene's breadth of experience and broad network of colleagues and experts assist her in aiding clients directly or being able to make the right introductions if necessary.
Your workshop fees and additional donations help our growing community of conservation and preservation professionals aid regional cultural heritage organizations in the care and conservation of their collections and materials. As a non-profit corporation registered in the state of Vermont, the CCCA relies on the support of our membership and community to help us develop and promote affordable opportunities for training and networking and to improve the long-term preservation of these vulnerable collections. Thank you!
Posted on behalf of CCCA,
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Carolyn Frisa
Founder and Head Conservator
Works on Paper LLC
Chester
United States
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