The following announcement is brought to you by the Museum Council of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley.
http://www.philadelphiamuseumcouncil.org/

Hi Museum Council Friends,

Many of you are probably aware of the fire that damaged the National Guard Armory.  Thankfully, as is outlined below from Laura Blanchard at PASCL, no one was hurt and the damage to the historic collection was minimal.
 
Here's the current status.  Staff is securing evaluations from the Conservation Center and other experts re. moving the collections. It will take some time to coordinate this effort and volunteers will definitely be needed (possibly over the weekend).  In a few days we will send out a call for volunteers, so please let us know at that time if you can help out.

Additionally they will need packing materials (tape, bubble wrap, tissue, etc.), but thanks to V. Champman-Smith, the National Archives is providing boxes.  So take an inventory of supplies that you could donate to the cause.

Dennis Boylan asked me to thank everyone for their support, and to look for the next update that will include their specific needs.

Laura also urges us:
This seems a good time to remind collecting institutions that there is a network working on mutual response to situations such as these, the Alliance for Response of Greater Philadelphia. It has a fledgling web site on the Heritage Preservation site. Tom Clareson is the contact person:
[log in to unmask] . The site's page is:

http://www.heritagepreservation.org/afr/Philadelphia/index.html

Sincerely,
Kristen Froehlich
President, Museum Council of Philadelphia and Director of the Collection Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia
15 S. 7th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
215-843-1713
[log in to unmask]

The Atwater Kent Museum: Philadelphia's history museum is renovating for the 21st Century. Visit www.philadelphiahistory.org for updates and continuing program information until our September 2010 reopening.



[Apologies for cross-posting - some of you may also receive a similar message from the Alliance for Response]

Dear all,

You may have seen the news about the fire at the National Guard Armory and First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry headquarters at 23rd and Ranstead on TV or in the paper. The headquarters houses a library, archives, and museum with documents and objects dating back to the colonial era.

Here is a link to a brief article in the Daily News:

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/81950292.html

At the suggestion of V. Chapman-Smith and others, PACSCL reached out to this collecting institution. I'm happy to be able to tell you from the folks on site that no one was injured and that damage to the collections is minimal
-- virtually all of the documents and objects have survived with no water damage. The archives and the Armory's storage turrets were completely unscathed.

There is smoke damage to paintings and other materials but my contact, Dennis Boylan, has asked me to share with you his deep gratitude to the Philadelphia Fire Department for being so careful with paintings and museum objects. He says that paintings were removed from walls and carried to safety before the firefighters used their hoses -- and although all the windows in the museum area have been blown out not one museum case was damaged.

The Armory's immediate need is for boxes to pack its collections in preparation for an off-site move. They estimate that they will need 400 Iron Mountain boxes and packaging materials such as bubble wrap and are hopeful that area repositories may be able to share some from their stock by Wednesday. They are not looking for archival storage boxes because they do not anticipate a lengthy stay off site, although Dennis hastens to assure me that the collections will be housed in a secure, temperature-and-humidity-controlled facility.

The Armory has not yet formulated its longer-term plan, but if they tell me they need volunteers to help pack the collections I will let you know.



--
Laura Blanchard, Executive Director
Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries P. O. Box 22642, Philadelphia PA 19110-2642
215-985-1445 voice, 215-985-1446 fax
[log in to unmask], http://www.pacscl.org/