Mary,

  I loved your reply to William.  Your advice and comparison to a marathon were so right on.  Sorting to broad categories sounds like it would make the cataloguing or re-cataloguing  much faster and probably better as someone working on it can get immersed in the terminology and typical characteristics of a group rather than brain-shifting from china to blacksmith tools to something else.  That might depend, though, on whether the objects had been numbered or not.  If not, I’d be cautious about moving them at all until it was clear that juxtaposition with other items (possible from the same source ) held no clues to their donor, date of acquisition or provenance.

I too have been there and done that, though in both cases, while the records were scanty, scattered, and took some finding, they were there and began to be helpful as I got in to the mindset of the people who had created them.

Another possible approach, if the storage situation is not damaging the collection, might be to start with the records –getting into the database everything that you are “supposed” to have, even if it’s just a number and object name, and those word documents, so when you start to work on there is a place to immediately update location, and also to have at least a keyword search ability to see what you have when someone needs something for exhibit or research, if something turns up without a number.  That might be something a volunteer could help with, as more and more people are computer literate enough to do that.

Every situation is a little different though, so deciding the best approach is doing what you are doing - assessing where things stand now,  and triage what most needs to be done to secure the health and welfare of the collections and best meet the needs for collection use.   What can be done, realistically, with staff and volunteers available will be part of that equation, probably.

William, Good luck, it’s a great challenge and requires perseverance, but as you work it is SO satisfying to know what you are accomplishing for the collection and for those who come after.

Lucy Sperlin

Good morning William!  It seems you find yourself in a situation that other museum professionals have faced over the years.  When I took the job I currently hold back in 2012 at a small local history museum, I was told that one of my primary objectives was to “get a handle on the museum collection.”  This institution has been collecting since the early 1970s and has all manner of objects in the collection.  In the early years, there was professional staff that did a great job of documenting everything (only on paper of course) and my most recent predecessor also did a good job of documenting.  In the intervening years, unfortunately, there were a series of collections managers/curators who either did not understand what they were supposed to be doing, or were not properly trained.  Records were lost, collections broken apart, objects went missing.

In addition to these issue, I inherited a collection that was housed in a non-climate controlled space with no security measures in place, a leaking roof (there were BUCKETS in the collection area to catch water as it came through the roof), little to no documentation on some of it, and that was packed in a haphazard manner that was not good for any of the objects.  I couldn’t even get into the back of the storage area – you had to stand on a chair and peer over piles of stuff into the back of the room – for eight months I had no idea what was back there.

My first step was to find a climate controlled, secure space and move everything.  The move took a team of six people one week to effect.  We just moved boxes as they were and placed everything on shelves in the new location.  During the move I diverted all archives to the research library space at the museum and all textiles and related accessories to another secure location.  The goal was to sort the collection into broad categories (transportation, tools, military, toys, etc.)  Once we got the top level sort done, I found a willing volunteer that devotes one afternoon every week to assisting me with the collection.  Beginning in with toys, we properly packed each piece, created a label for the box so we would know what was in it, and put everything onto the computer.  Once we finished with toys, we moved on to railroads, then military, etc.  We’ve been at it for two years now and have about 30% of the collection properly packed, boxes labeled and everything on the computer.  I figure we have at least 3 more years of work to do.  Then I will turn my attention to photographing everything, cross checking the files against the computer, etc.  Eventually, it will get sorted out.  It’s just going to take some time.  Bottom line here – and some others have alluded to this – break your work up into manageable chunks – small goals that will help you get some stuff accomplished.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint.  Set up a method of going about it that works for you and just start picking away at it.  You will be amazed how soon you start to see progress.

Good luck!

Mary Dellinger

*Apologies for cross posting.*

Hello,

                I’m recently started in a new position at a new institution managing their collection. My predecessor, while a very nice person, fell far behind on management of the collection. I’m seeing about seven years of buildup. Everything needs to be rehoused/needs proper storage, virtually every database record updated with correct locations and information, hundreds or thousands of records entered into the database that are typed out in a Word file but not entered into the database, paperwork and documentation located and updated, as well as rearranging objects in storage areas. The archives collection is in a bit better condition so this will only focus on the Museum’s mixed physical collection consisting of the usual human created items, natural history items, photographs, etc. My guess is there is somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000 collection items to be dealt with.

                As I’m making a plan to tackle this massive project I’d be very interested in hearing from anyone else that has gone through this or a similar process. I’m tossing around ideas as I sort through things and of course it all depends on available funds, but I’m thinking the only way to go is physically shelf by shelf, one by one, try to locate a database or Word record, update as necessary and rehouse as necessary, rearrange where possible then move on. This is obviously going to be a huge amount of work so hopefully I’ll come across some funding to get some recent grads but any success’ and pitfalls others care to share would be much appreciated. Thank you.

William Shepherd

Collections Officer

Swift Current Museum

44 Robert Street West

Swift Current, Saskatchewan

S9H 4M9

Phone: 306-778-4815

Fax: 306-778-4818

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