Comparison of textile conservation education in universities in Turkey and suggestions

In order to assure the textile work legacy for future generations which are mobilisable cultural assets and also in order to set the public perception to preserve these assets; the lectures in Turkish universities which deal with textile conservation are identified, same lectures in different universities are compared with respect to their scopes and suggestions for found problems are presented. Before presenting the suggestions the lectures related with textile conservations in Glasgow and Amsterdam universities are analysed. Additionally five textile laboratories in Turkey are also analysed and compared via tables. It was observed that the textile conservation related lectures are mostly executed theoretically without labs and so it was thought that the students will benefit in terms of application abilities if they go to the museums laboratory in predefined weeks. The lectures about textile conservation are analysed, the curriculum data are observed, state is identified and finally missing points are defined. The results are compared via tables and pros and cons are stated. Using the results suggestions are brought. In order to make investigations, 13 universities are identified, and "Traditional Turkish Arts", "Carpets", "Old Textile Texture Main Art Branches", "Conservation and Repair of Culture Assets", "Textile" and "Handicrafts" departments are analysed. Additionally since it has got lots of lectures about textile conservation, Aksaray university is also added. Main purpose is to contribute to increasing the quality of the lectures and improving the curriculums with new suggestions. The lecture theoretical application hours, info, mandatory or optional info, which semester and purpose of the lectures had been presented via tables. Also the credit information of the lectures had also been presented vitables. In the investigation, textile labs in Turkish museums, textile conservation lectures having universities had been visited, the officers and academicians had been interviewed either face to face or through emails. Academicians were asked about curriculums. Most of the universities were identified that they were having the lectures in theoretical level. And for the remaining mostly there were no other restoration activity other than carpet restoration. Referring to the museum data, the identification of the state of the textile conservation in Turkey has been achieved. It was thought that having support from museum textile labs to the textile conservation lectures is beneficial. For this purpose a list of museums and textile labs had been visited and circumstances had been observed in place.