This is a challenge at many, many museums. I have a couple of nuggets of advice:
The Henry Ford Museum is well known in the objects conservation world for their artifact ranking system and preservation policy. I think this link will take you to it:
http://cool.conservation-us.org/byorg/henryfordmuseum/preservation-policy.html
One of the beautiful things about this policy is that it has something for everyone. Certain artifacts are designated to be restored to working condition and consumptively used. Others are maintained with as little alteration as possible. If you can agree with the volunteers to rank objects in your collection, or at least the ones that are most likely to be targeted for restoration, that might help. Perhaps there could be a moratorium on treatment until a ranking has been established for a particular object. I imagine your volunteers might be recruited to help provide documentation for the files to justify the rankings?
As far as credibility and getting people to listen to you, I have found that it has been helpful for me to admit where my expertise ends and the expertise of volunteers and others begins. For example, there are important historic aircraft in the Alaska State Museum collection. One aircraft in particular was up for some restoration by an outside entity. But I know next to nothing about aircraft, and the folks who wanted to see work done have a lot of knowledge. We contracted a conservator from the Henry Ford Museum who know airplanes to come and do a condition assessment and treatment recommendation for the aircraft. Soon after, that conservator was selected to be the head of the conservation at the National Air and Space Museum. You can imagine the credibility that his report has with the folks who want to restore that airplane, compared to the weight they might have given my report.
Industrial history is challenging in ways that other collections are not, in part because seeing the thing in working condition is a special thrill that connects to audiences in unique ways. My husband and I are both conservators, and he just told me yesterday he was considering flying us and our three-year old from Juneau to Fairbanks (that's around 800 air miles I think) for ONE DAY to see a steam locomotive actually running at a museum there for a special event. I'm smitten with the artifact ranking idea. Perhaps it might help in your situation?
Ellen Carrlee
Conservator
Alaska State Museum
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Julie Blood
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 8:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Problems with volunteers
I work for a museum that has a large collection of agricultural equipment, especially tractors. Many of these tractors come in unrestored and we have a group of retired guys who volunteer their time to restore these tractors. Unfortunately, their idea of restoration and my idea of restoration are not the same thing.
The tractor they are currently working on is a Holt 75 that Museum staff would like to have running for demonstrations. I have been told by other museum staff that a few of the restoration volunteers have referred to the artifacts as "junk," luckily these staff members have informed the volunteers otherwise. Even though I have been working with a "friend of the museum" in acquiring accurate replications of parts for the Holt 75, I am finding that my restoration volunteers are using scrap pieces of materials to make parts for the tractor which are inaccurate. I have provided them with parts lists/pictures and the care and operations manual for this tractor. The "friend of the museum" is also serving as a consultant for this project, but cannot be out at the museum to assist in the actual restoration.
Unfortunately, this is only one example of the many poorly restored projects they have done over the years. One of the last tractors that was restored had a cap from the fly-wheel chiseled off instead of just unscrewing the cover to remove this cap. This was a problem that the previous Collections Manager faced for MANY years and I would really like to break the cycle. How to you get through to these guys that our artifacts are not "junk"? I am in the process of writing a restoration policy for the museum, but just because I write one doesn't mean that they are going to follow it. Since this project began, I have had to be in the restoration shop supervising their work (a total of 6 hours/week) instead of being able to do other necessary job duties. I would like to be able to trust them enough where I can go out to the shop for about a few hours, take photos, get updates and make decisions and answer questions they have. I do have a few volunteers who understand and love being able to accurately restore the equipment and I don't have to worry about them, but they aren't rubbing off on the others.
Since these are all volunteers, how do you handle this situation diplomatically? I would really like to get rid of the bad apples, but know that may not be possible. We have a guy who is kind of their leader, but he isn't doing the best of job in directing the volunteers... he is older and has health issues, so I am also playing a waiting game on that too... hoping it will improve once he isn't involved anymore. What is the nicest, but firmest way to let them know that they need to change their thinking and do things correctly? Any suggestions you provide would be very helpful, as it would really help my stress level. Also if you have a restoration policy you would like to share, I would appreciate that too!
Thanks,
Julie
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