Museum of North Idaho wrote:
>
> Does anyone know of museums that serve as a central repository and support
> for satellite or branch museums, interpretative centers or historical
> societies for a given region.  My area has several historical societies with
> no paid staff and most without buildings and we would like to work with them
> to combine resources.  County population is about 100,000.  Does anyone know
> how to go about setting up such arrangements or places that this is working?
> Dorothy Dahlgren
> Museum of North Idaho
> 208-664-3448 Tues-Sat
> [log in to unmask]
>
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It is a part of our mission statement to do exactly what you are
proposing.  As the County museum, we have a mandate to assist community
museums in organizational development (incorporation, 501-c-3
applications, etc.), in learning how to care accession and care for
collections, develop exhibits, solicit members, etc.  We are required to
loan them artifacts for exhibits provided they can demonstrate that the
exhibit environment is proper and the can insure the object(s).

We have just gone through a policy conflict on the latter requirement.
A local museum could not afford to insure several objects they wanted
for exhibits.  The Board wants us to loan the items (one of our board
members is on the community museum board and brought pressure to make
the loan without insurance).  Our response was that the board would have
to self-insure and take both personal and collective responsibility for
loss or damage.  The policy change was given to them at the last meeting
for a vote at the next.  We will see what happens.

We are in dire need of collections storage space ourselves, so part of
our motive is to get the community museums to actively collect but to do
so properly.  That isn't working either.  They don't have appropriate
storage facilities.

So, at our coming board retreat I am going to push for the board to move
ahead on construction of a new collections storage facility.  I will
also propose that it become a regional repository with the community
museums having the right to store their collections in our building   We
won't take ownership (they will not give us ownership for territorial
reasons--which is an issue in itself), but all community collections
stored there must be the property of the community museum.  We don't
want to become a warehouse for privately owned objects.

This will serve the community well in the long run as a good many of
these community museums will fail in time and most of them have included
the turnover of their assets in case of failure, to the county museum.

What more can I help you with?  The concept is a good one.  I support it
for a variety of reasons.  Let me know if you want more re: potential
good and certain problems.
--
Bob Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas 77515
[log in to unmask]
http://www.bchm.org
409-864-1208

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