An archivist deals primarily with paper ephemera and occassionaly with 3-D objects in their collections.

A collections curator (or curator of collections) and registrar are involved in the accessioning and tracking (inventory) of 3-D objects (paintings, furniture, tractors, chicken sunglasses, etc.), this can include paper ephemera (newspapers, land deeds, letters, books, etc).

Sometimes collections curators (or curators of collections) are traditional-type curators (research and identify objects), and should not be confused with collections managers (manage a 3-D collection), which is what a registrar does, too.

On the other hand, some collections managers manage people within the collections department and not the 3-D collection.  These kinds of collections managers often are the supervisors of the registrar, leaving the registrar to physically manage the 3-D collection.  This is true in my case, I am a registrar supervised by a collections manager.  (We once had a curator of collections position who was supervised by the collections manager as well as me.  Our curator of collections was of the traditional-type curators.)

I have a colleague who's title is curator of collections and performs all of the same duties as I, however, she has no registrar or collections manager in her dept.  But then her institution isn't nearly as large as mine.  She is the collections dept., while our dept. has 7 full-time and 6 part-time employees out of the nearly 200 on the entire institution's staff.

It really all comes down to what the institution decides to put in the job description for each position.  At Conner Prairie, I am responsible for crating and inventory (I rarely do identification) of the permanent collection (3-D objects) which includes some archival materials.  But we also have a librarian/arhivist who is responsible for the archival collection.  The archival and permanent collections at Conner Prairie are two separate collections and are managed and tracked differently.

I hope this hasn't left you too "corn"-fused (a whimsical, Midwestern saying).

Lana Newhart-Kellen
Conner Prairie, a living history museum
Fishers IN

>>> [log in to unmask] 02/21/02 01:47PM >>>
What is the difference between collections curator, archivist and registrar?
Which person actually is in charge of inventory, identification and crating?

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