8.5% of the Getty Museum space and 12% of its operating budget are devoted to conservation. The three departments of conservation: paintings, decorative arts and sculpture, and antiquities, are described. Staff members are interviewed, priorities and attitudes discussed. The paintings conservation department seeks to preserve an overall unity and an untouched look for the surface of pictures. Interns are accepted regularly. Guest conservators from the U.S. and abroad are hosted on an annual schedule. Earthquake planning and information exchange between conservators and curators are among topics emphasized. The Getty Conservation Institute scientific program is described. Long-range projects in that department include investigation of coatings, analysis of furniture finishes and paint media with FTIR and HPLC, and a bibliography on acrylic resins. (Abstractor's note: Photographs are not correctly captioned, and Andrea Rothe's name was misspelled by the printer).