The artifacts in the collection were not recovered from the ocean floor looking polished and perfect, but have undergone a complicated process of conservation to insure their survival for generations to come--a process which begins immediately upon retrieval in a conservation laboratory at sea. 

The first eighteen hundred artifacts, retrieved during Expedition 1987, were conserved in the research laboratories of Electricité de France (EDF). Here engineers and archeologists were brought together to develop a ground breaking technique for using electroloysis to extract the embedded chlorides in Titanic’s metal objects accumulated during their prolonged emersion in salt water.

Their work was carried on by the conservators at LP3 Conservation in rural France where a highly qualified staff, with expertise in marine archaeological objects, ethnographic materials, metals, textiles, wood, and paper, looked after the collection. Finally, in 2000, the entire collection of artifacts was brought together in a laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, headquarters of RMS Titanic, Inc., which is now responsible for their ongoing care.