Hello:

The following questions came to me from a mining museum that is situated
on the actual mine site. I thought that perhaps others working in
industrial museums would have some helpful suggestions.

Our museum is unique in that many artifacts in our care are still useful
in restoration and upkeep (within their intended purpose).  How are we
to keep these artifacts marked, and tracked?

Many of our machines and structures require specific pieces of equipment
often from our collection, but sometimes obtained through second hand
sales situations, we often find ourselves wondering: what if, in fifty
years we're not here and someone stumbles on to this piece (actually
obtained from an outside source) and mistakes it for a period piece,
native to our museum?  

Piles of Scrap? 
Our museum is different than many museums which exist in a single
building, we have 74 acres of land much of it is covered in artifacts,
ranging from pieces of rebar to our four story tipple to five hundred
pound coal cars to our collection of 100 carbide lamps and over twenty
buildings.  Now we are dealing with the task of recording, and
cataloguing the artifacts from the Blacksmith's shop, the fact is that
there are so many artifacts up there that to mark each piece would
require a database of its own.  Also this process, which would require
an enormous amount of time, would likely be useless, as many of the
artifacts are small metal fragments many of which would fit into the
same category, for example: 55 pieces of grizzly bar between 11 and 15
cm.  Do you have any suggestions on approaching the topic of making a
meaningful and useful categorization for this project?  Might it be
useful to have a function group and a parts group??

Thanks for any suggestions/solutions!
Marcia
___________________________________________
Marcia McLean, MA
Director, Advisory Services
Acting Director, Operations
Alberta Museums Association
 
9829.103 Street
Edmonton, Alberta   T5K 0X9
PH: 780.424.2626 x.222
FX: 780.425.1679
EM: [log in to unmask]
WB: www.museumsalberta.ab.ca
 

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