The general assessment survey - a tool for addressing basic conservation needs within a museum - is now a basic requirement for institutions wishing to receive funds from many Federal and private sources. While conservation consultants have conducted assessments for a number of years, there has been no standard approach to the assessment's format, emphasis, or the topics it should cover. Indeed, up till now, the term survey has denoted any one of a variety of approaches taken by conservators to measure the status of conservation within museums. These have included object-by-object surveys of the individual museum pieces, general surveys of collections or storage, and building or environmental surveys designed to focus on specific topics. While some conservators have included pest management, disaster planning, and other broad policy issues in their surveys, there has been no real agreement within the profession as to the parameters of a comprehensive survey. As a result, assessments have varied in their usefulness. Moreover, inconsistencies in approach sometimes served to confuse organizations, thereby deterring them from carrying out recommendations. In the context of heightened needs and requirements, the National Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Property (NIC) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) initiated the Conservation Survey/Assessment Project (CS/AP) in 1988. CS/AP offers an alternative - a methodology for gathering, interpreting, and reporting the types of information that museum professionals believe are essential to successful collections care policies and practices. -- CAL