Dear mj,

As a new museum, the best thing you can do for yourself is purchase the
Canadian Conservation Institute's Notes (CCI Notes).  They are written for
small museums on limited budgets.  There are 88 topic leaflets in the series
ranging from "Precautions for Storage Areas" and "Cleaning Glass and Acrylic
Display Cases" to "Care and Cleaning of Iron" to "Flat Storage for
Textiles", "Washing Non-Coloured Textiles", "Applying Accession Numbers on
Textiles"...etc. (there are 15 leaflets just on textiles.  For $85 Canadian
(about $65-70 US) you receive a binder with all the leaflets in it.  Order from:
Canadian Conservation Institute
1030 Innes Road
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0M5 CANADA
613-998-3721 (tel)
613-998-4721 (fax)
checks should be payable to the Receiver General for Canada.

Also, the Textile Conservation Center used to produce (I am not sure if they
are still available since I obtained them in the mid-80s) Technical
Bibliographies that only dealt with textiles.  Topics included storage,
cleaning and display of costumes and other textiles.  I believe the cost was
$2 per leaflet plus shipping.
Technical Bibliographies
Textile Conservation Center
Museum of American Textile History
800 Massachusetts Avenue North
Andover, MA 01845
617-686-0191
(this address may be old, you may need to search in the AAM directory, but
it is a start)

Finally, we occaisionally print information on textiles in The Upper Midwest
Collections Care Network.  An annual subscription is $12.

Good luck!

Helen Alten
Field Services Director
2400 3rd Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-870-3120
[log in to unmask]



At 07:48 AM 2/6/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Our museum budget is rather slim at this time - we are a recently
>established local history museum. Donations of old clothing related to
>our area are starting to come in and we are wondering about storage of
>these treasures.  We have been looking into special clothing boxes and
>acid-free tissue paper.  We are looking at the pros/cons of the cost
>versus the benefits.  Any ideas?
>
>mj
>
>