Twice in my museum career I have been involved in moving into a new museum facility and I have also been involved in planning new museum facilities. Here are a FEW thoughts to help you and others learn from the experience of others: 1. PLAN FOR EXPANSION on your expansion. Expect that in 10 to 20 years down the road, you WILL want to expand on whatever you are doing now. Some architects will fight you in court if you want to make add-ons to "their" building, so get them to "phantom plan" these add-ons during Phase 1. 2. MAINTAIN FLEXIBILITY - We installed $300,000 worth of cabinets, mobile shelving, metal shelving, pallet racking etc. in the early 1990s in our 1989 administration/storage building and already have had to undergo some major changes (e.g. to accommodate our city's archives and its art collection). We are also reorganizing our storage area after numbering all the units. Unit numbering will remain basically unchanged but items may move from shelf to shelf. The inventory system is being implemented so that all future moves will be tracked. 3. LEAKPROOF IS BETTER THAN PRETTY - Avoid the flat roof and pretty building trap! Water is smarter than some architects it seems and besides, water works 24 hours a day, everyday, trying to get in. In the museum world, a big ugly leak proof building is better than a pretty but leaking building. 4. WATER PIPES & SEWAGE - Avoid water pipes, drain pipes etc. over any of your storage area. The question is not if you will have leaks, but WHEN you will have leaks. Ideally ANY water (don't forget the gardener's taps on the exterior of the building) should be at one end of the building and not have ANY artifact/art/archival storage underneath it. An exception could be sprinklers. Don't forget guards on sprinkler heads in case staff bump them while moving furniture etc. 5. BLUEPRINTS - When looking at blueprints, flick past the first few pages that show lovely uncluttered rooms, and check out the electrical, plumbing and heating pages to see the real clutter of ducts, outlets, wall switches, fire extinguishers, emergency wall mounted lighting, thermostats, overhead temperature/humidity control units etc. that prevent you from simply putting shelves or file cabinets against a certain wall. We had a storage room intended for tables and chairs from our meeting room that ended up having ductwork both across the floor and at shoulder height which drastically limited its usefulness. 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 Anne Marr Sent: March 13, 2001 9:10 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Planning new facility The New Brunswick Museum is in the very early stages of planning for a new purpose-built collections facility. We would appreciate any advice or suggestions from colleagues who have had experience in this sort of project in the last 5-10 years. The Museum's collections are made up of Humanities, Natural Sciences and Archives and Research Library. If anyone has ideas on how we should proceed (or pitfalls we should avoid) I welcome any and all responses. Thanks in advance Anne Marr Registrar New Brunswick Museum [log in to unmask] ========================================================= 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).