The term 'curator' has been used in the English language since 1661 to refer to the person in charge of a museum or library and its collections. The word comes from the Latin verb curare, which means 'to care for, or have charge of'.

Who we are
The Trust's curatorial team consists of ten paid members of staff, including two curators and four collection conservators. Seven staff are based at the Trust's Head Office in Edinburgh, and one each at three of the Trust's regional offices. With hundreds of thousands of objects to care for, scattered throughout scores of buildings the length and breadth of Scotland, the task of this small team can be extremely challenging!

What we do
The Curatorial Department is concerned with the care, preservation and presentation of the insides of all the built properties owned or managed by the Trust. In other words, we are responsible for looking after the entire material contents of the houses and their interior decor.

Caring for Trust collections is special because they are vast and extremely varied, ranging from works of the highest artistic merit and international significance, such as Pompeo Batoni's magnificent full-length portrait of Colonel William Gordon, at Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire, to humble objects with great site-specific value, such as the battered old tools used by the distinguished stone carver Hew Lorimer in his sculpture studio at Kellie Castle in Fife.

Our combined collections of historic portraiture and furniture, in particular, are today acknowledged to rival in quantity and range (if not always quality) those of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Scotland. But our properties are not museums in the strict sense of the word - most of them were built, developed and cherished as family homes. So we face the special challenge of showing and protecting a massive range of artefacts in their original historic settings, allowing visitors the privilege of seeing objects, not behind glass or barriers, but in the context of the houses for which they were originally designed or purchased, and in the open surroundings in which they were used and loved by their past owners.

The Curators and Conservators work very closely together.

• Curators are concerned principally with developing knowledge about the historical and artistic significance of the Trust's collections and interiors. They explore archival and published material, in search of clues about how a property looked and functioned in the past. They also provide advice on the overall aesthetic appearance of the interiors - the way collection items are displayed in the properties, and the manner in which the rooms are presented to general public. The curators' research contributes to many areas of the Trust's work, including educational activities, conservation plans and fundraising appeals.
• Conservators' main concern is with preserving the physical state of all objects in the Trust's care, without prejudice as to their artistic merit, historical importance or monetary value. They all specialise in preventative, rather than remedial, conservation, adopting a holistic approach to collections care. This identifies risk to collections, and then seeks to eliminate or manage those risks to prevent damage. The conservators' work is guided by the Trust's Collections Care Policy.

How to find out more
The Curatorial team spends a great deal of time 'on the road' - so we are sometimes difficult to track down, but we try to deal with all enquiries as quickly as possible. Please write to Diana Stevens, Curatorial Administrator, NTS, Wemyss House, 28 Charlotte Square, EDINBURGH EH2 4ET or email dstevens@nts.org.uk.