In our outdoor village museum, which represents the early 1920s, we had a
major problem in distinguishing between artifacts and 'non-artifacts'. Many
of the expendable items (in effect an education collection) were IDENTICAL
to the artifacts or similar enough to be confused with the originals. Over
5,000 collection items had no accession numbers on them when I arrived at
this museum in 1986 and replicas and 'expendable' items could easily be
mistaken for collection items and vice versa. These items have now been
accessioned but we have an on-going problems of artifacts with numbers
missing in part or in whole.
The catalyst for the decision that follows was my finding a wooden spinning
top that looked to be a genuine toy about 100 years old. A Maintenance staff
member recognized it and said that he had made it a few years before then,
and that it had simply gone through literally hundreds of children's hands -
thus its antique appearance.
Our current practice is to mark EVERYTHING.
* Artifacts receive an accession number e.g. BV999.1.1
* Replicas and other 'expendable' items are marked "XBV" (i.e. Expendable -
Burnaby Village Museum)(e.g. brooms, buckets, laser colour copies of
Christmas cards and sheet music). These items are not worth inventorying and
are marked simply to avoid confusion with artifacts.
* Valuable replicas or expendable items that would be expensive or difficult
to replace or to find a source for (e.g. an expensive replica 1890s bicycle
or a replica scientific instrument) receive a number with an "X" prefix e.g.
X1234. If the above bike was stolen, this system could tell us where a
previous staff member bought it, and for how much. That alone could save
weeks of searching for sources.
* Costume replica items for volunteers (over 130) and staff are marked with
numbers (sewn in) prefixed by a letter "C". This enables us to distinguish
between the collection clothing and expendable clothing, and to be able to
return a forgotten hat to the person who was using it.
The computer database/collection management program can be used to help keep
track of the numbered collection and numbered expendable items although we
have not yet entered the X-numbered items. That is not a priority.
Colin Macgregor Stevens
Curator
Burnaby Village Museum
City of Burnaby, British Columbia, CANADA
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Museum web site:
http://www.burnabyparksrec.org/villagemuseum/villagemuseum.html
The opinions expressed above are my own.
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Tusculum College Museums
Sent: April 12, 2001 9:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Education Collections...
Hello,
I am working at a small historic house museum which has a permanent
collection and an educational collection. We have inventoried,
accessioned, and cataloged our permanent collection and now are working on
our education collection. In the past we have had inventories done that
list what, where, how many and condition but what we are wondering is how
do other similar museums handle their education collection-do they just
inventory it making a simple list of items, or do they assign numbers to
the items and catalog them like a permanent collection, or something
different altogether? Thanks for any help you can offer, Adrienne
Marrah-Program Assistant for Museum Program and Studies
=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message
to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help"
(without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes).
=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
|
