I would not keep original archives in a wooden building. I would keep copies there, on microfilm or in photocopy.
There is a third alternative: build a modern concrete slab one-room addition onto the back of your existing building. Install a 4-hour rated vault door to enter the room from your existing house. Install appropriate climate control and alarms. Cover the outside with clapboard or shingles and trim to match your original structure, and add a pitched roof or whatever to match.
This assumes your historic house is sited so that a small exterior addition on the rear would not be objectionable. Although it might be tempting, I would not build this room below ground, especially since you are in a coastal location.
You would only need a space large enough for the materials and shelving. You could provide a reading room for researchers and staff in the house itself, so long as you locked up all books and papers in the vault room each day at closing.
David W. Palmquist
Head, Chartering Program
NY State Museum
State Education Department
3090 Cultural Education Center
Albany NY 12230
518-473-3131
FAX 518-473-8496
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web site: www.nysm.nysed.gov/charter/
>>> [log in to unmask] 08/14/01 10:25AM >>>
As our institution looks toward getting a good, secure, organized archive
room set up, we are torn between two ideas. We are a historic house
museum, and as such are in an old structure whose timbers are from 90 to
200 years old. We have a good integrated alarm system for fire and theft,
but no fire suppression system. There is some climate control, though
that would be boosted if we were to move archives there. From a practical
point of view, it seems logical to try to find a space within our physical
building to store archives and provide space for their use. But there are
people worried about the fire risk of the building.
The other option is to rent a space 15 minutes walk away, in a modern
office building on the main street of the small coastal city we live in.
It has a sprinkler system, alarms, and better climate control - though as
things stand we wouldn't have control of the climate control. We would
have security systems installed. Either location would be fitted with
good cabinets and shelves suitable for archives, though I would explore
"fireproof" housing more deeply if the archives were to be in the museum.
Off-site would be a nuisance, as staff would have to suspend other work
any time outside researchers needed to use the archives, not to mention
the added risk of transferring papers back and forth for exhibit and
prolonged staff research.
So, any thoughts on the risks of keeping archives in a historic structure
but on our own property, as opposed to keeping them in a more modern
building with suppression integrated but less in our control and under our
oversite? I appreciate any thoughts, however random!
Thanks,
Juliette Rogers
Collections Manager/Registrar
Stephen Phillips Trust House
Salem Mass.
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