The Technical Museum in Vienna, Austria, closed its doors in September 1992,
and all of the 30.000 registered objects had to documented and transported
to a nearby deposit hall.
I was then the director and responsible for the move (now I am consultant
and manager of diverse international cultural projects). Why we did it: the
80 year old buidling needed desparately refurbishment; nothing was done to
it in 80 years! Therefore, we decided to move out, instead of moving the
objects around all through the work and dust and people running around.
We took pictures of all coordinates of the museum hall (about 170.000 square
feet) to be able to reconstruct the whereabouts of the museum - and the
looks of the old museum, we laid out a software to control the flow of the
objects in and out of the storage and the museum.
Now, years later (new directors came and went) the objects return slowly,
much too slowly, maybe.
But it was quite a task and it was finished within some month - of course,
with all due problems and of course, with minor or funny mishapps.

If you are interested in such a major move, just tell it.

Peter, the Rebernik
(address at the end)
--------------------------


At 11:13 23.04.98 -0600, you wrote:
>I am helping to develop a session at the upcoming SPNHC (Society for the
>Preservation of Natural History Collections) workshop and would like some
>ideas from Museum-Lers.
>
>The workshop's theme is 'Moving Collections' and I am developing a wrap-up
>session where participants will work in groups through a case study.
>
>To initiate creative problem solving and to lighten the mood, I am looking
>for anecdotes of unexpected problems during a collections move -- what you
>would change if you could do it all over again or things that went
>horribly wrong. Any problems with transportation? building contractors?
>suppliers? Were the blueprints for the new facility never really checked
>for ceiling height and you had to look for shorter employees? Was the
>live dermestid collection moved to their new home right next to the
>natural history diorama?
>
>I need stories! Feel free to reply to me on or off list and your anonymity
>will be preserved, if you so desire.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Audrey Yardley-Jones
>Conservation Co-ordinator
>Museums Alberta
>9829 - 103 Street
>Edmonton, Alberta T5K 0X9
>phone: (403) 424-2668, ext. 225
>fax: (403) 425-1679
>email: [log in to unmask]
>
>

+------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  PHAROS International - Bureau for Cultural Projects
|  Peter Rebernik, Dipl.-Ing.
|  Anton Baumgartner-Str.44/C2/3/2
|  A - 1230 Vienna / AUSTRIA
|  Tel.: (... 43 1) 667 7375
|  Fax: (... 43 1) 667 2984
|  Mobiltel.: (... 43 664) 230 2767
|  E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
|  Homepage: www.ycom.at/~rebernik
+------------------------------------------------------------------------