Last week I went on a bit about how museums are interested in collecting more than just “old stuff,” so this week I thought I’d look a little at what museums don’t collect.
I should note first off that museums, being human institutions, can be as quirky as people are. So, here’s where I insert the usual disclaimer that what follows are my own opinions, limited to my own experience,and should not be taken to represent Universal Truth for all museums.
The Esplanade is a local social history museum; we collect artefacts to represent the human experience of Medicine Hat and the surrounding area. That mandate restricts us in what we’ll collect; we’re not collecting natural history specimens, or ancient Egyptian artefacts, or coin and/or stamp collections. For the most part, we collect pieces that have a known (ideally, documented) history and association (called “provenance” in museum-speak) with the local area. That generally excludes things that don’t have a known history; many times were offered items that people have acquired from other family members, or friends, or have just been in a barn for the past 70 years—and they can’t tell us much about the piece except, “it’s old.” If we don’t have the history of use for an item, it makes it hard for us to use the item to explain the history of the area. So, there’s Reason #1 why a museum might not collect a certain thing—no specific history on the item.
Reason #2 might be that an item is damaged, broken, or incomplete. If, for example, a particular game set isn’t a good representation of that game because it’s missing key pieces, it’s tougher for that particular game set to be a good representation of the larger social picture. There’s some room for exception here, if the provenance is particularly good.
Reason #3 might be if the piece physically represents a danger to people or our existing collections. This, thankfully, doesn’t come up often—but we have been offered live artillery shells, acid-soaked wooden boxes, and poisonous chemicals. We try not to take many of these…
Reason #4: we might already have 16 of them in the collection. Storage space is a precious commodity for most museums, so we try to avoid collecting more than 2 or 3 examples of any one thing. If we end up with 16 desks, for example, we might not be able to acquire a more unique piece of furniture, for lack of space to put it.
Reason #5: inability to care for an item. This generally applies to larger pieces, like vehicles. Everything we take into the collection comes with an obligation for us to preserve it for the future; if we don’t have the resources to preserve something, we can’t in good faith accept it in the collection. If we have to store a large piece, like a vehicle, out in the elements (which we have done in the past, before acquiring some warehouse space), it will deteriorate, and we’ve failed to preserve it. So, if we know at the outset we can’t preserve something, we won’t accept it in the first place.
So, if you’re ever in a position to offer something to a museum, please understand why a museum might not accept your gift. It’s not for lack of appreciation for the offer—many museums will be flattered that you consider them a suitable home for what you’re offering. It’s just that we have to be selective to ensure we can do our jobs of preserving the items that truly reflect the history of our community.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
It's Not All "Old Stuff"
There’s a fairly common perception about museums that we’re only interested in “old stuff.” This is often reinforced by visits to museum galleries, where mostly “old stuff” is on display. This perception, while understandable, is false.
Let me ‘splain.
Museums are about preserving history. “History” to a lot of people conjures up thoughts of famous dead people and long-ago dates. The origin of the word in ancient Greek means “inquiry;” up through the Middle Ages it meant much the same as “story.” It wasn’t until the late 15th Century that “history” specifically referred to the past. So we’re probably better off to think of museums as preserving “stories” rather than “history.” After all, the only difference between a story from yesterday and one from 1910 is about a hundred years; it’s only a matter of time before yesterday’s story is that old, too.
There’s a couple of reasons why “museum” and “old stuff” seem to go hand-in-hand. One is that we often need a time buffer to be able to recognize significant events or social trends. It can often take the passage of several decades to provide enough context for someone to say, “Yes, that is important—we should preserve that.”
Museums also want to educate their audiences. As recent events are often already well known, exhibits tend to focus on older, less well known stories.
Another factor seems to be the reluctance of people to recognize that their own lives are witness to “history.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people say, “I remember those; that can’t possibly be old enough to be in a museum.” My personal experience is that most people don’t consider something to be “historic” until its 40 or 50 years old. And, since most of our collections come from donations (museums being chronically under-funded and unable to buy many artefacts), we’re largely dependent on our donors pre-selecting what they think is historic.
This is not to suggest that museum people are above this kind of “history prejudice.” I’ve worked in museums that had self-imposed cut-off dates for what they collected. That might work for, say, a First World War museum that won’t collect anything more recent than 1918. But, for a community museum to decide not to collect anything post-1960 is just kinda silly, and necessarily restricts them to collection “old stuff.”
If we’re doing our jobs right, social history museums like the Esplanade ought to be collecting material that relates to significant developments and experiences of our communities, regardless of how old that material is. “Contemporary collecting,” as it’s called in the museum field, offers the opportunity to collect objects in prime condition, often with other materials that help tell the story.
Some of the pieces we’ve collected in recent years include a car window flag reading “Go Kalan Go” from Kalan Porter’s 2004 “Canadian Idol” campaign; a blazer from our local Centennial Ambassador from Alberta’s 100th anniversary in 2005, and a 2010 Canadian Monopoly set, featuring Medicine Hat on the property usually occupied by Illinois Avenue. It’s all about the story behind the artefact, not how old it is.
If you wanted to preserve something to represent Medicine Hat as it is in 2011, what would you choose?
Let me ‘splain.
Museums are about preserving history. “History” to a lot of people conjures up thoughts of famous dead people and long-ago dates. The origin of the word in ancient Greek means “inquiry;” up through the Middle Ages it meant much the same as “story.” It wasn’t until the late 15th Century that “history” specifically referred to the past. So we’re probably better off to think of museums as preserving “stories” rather than “history.” After all, the only difference between a story from yesterday and one from 1910 is about a hundred years; it’s only a matter of time before yesterday’s story is that old, too.
There’s a couple of reasons why “museum” and “old stuff” seem to go hand-in-hand. One is that we often need a time buffer to be able to recognize significant events or social trends. It can often take the passage of several decades to provide enough context for someone to say, “Yes, that is important—we should preserve that.”
Museums also want to educate their audiences. As recent events are often already well known, exhibits tend to focus on older, less well known stories.
Another factor seems to be the reluctance of people to recognize that their own lives are witness to “history.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people say, “I remember those; that can’t possibly be old enough to be in a museum.” My personal experience is that most people don’t consider something to be “historic” until its 40 or 50 years old. And, since most of our collections come from donations (museums being chronically under-funded and unable to buy many artefacts), we’re largely dependent on our donors pre-selecting what they think is historic.
This is not to suggest that museum people are above this kind of “history prejudice.” I’ve worked in museums that had self-imposed cut-off dates for what they collected. That might work for, say, a First World War museum that won’t collect anything more recent than 1918. But, for a community museum to decide not to collect anything post-1960 is just kinda silly, and necessarily restricts them to collection “old stuff.”
If we’re doing our jobs right, social history museums like the Esplanade ought to be collecting material that relates to significant developments and experiences of our communities, regardless of how old that material is. “Contemporary collecting,” as it’s called in the museum field, offers the opportunity to collect objects in prime condition, often with other materials that help tell the story.
Some of the pieces we’ve collected in recent years include a car window flag reading “Go Kalan Go” from Kalan Porter’s 2004 “Canadian Idol” campaign; a blazer from our local Centennial Ambassador from Alberta’s 100th anniversary in 2005, and a 2010 Canadian Monopoly set, featuring Medicine Hat on the property usually occupied by Illinois Avenue. It’s all about the story behind the artefact, not how old it is.
If you wanted to preserve something to represent Medicine Hat as it is in 2011, what would you choose?
Friday, January 14, 2011
Where's All the Stuff?
Over the past two weeks, I explained a bit of what was involved in moving the Museum collection into the Esplanade. Walking through our permanent gallery, you might well think, “There’s not so much stuff here; why’d it take so long to move?’
A lot of times people think that the entire museum collection is on exhibit. That’s not the case—we have about 1,000 objects on permanent display; about 4% of our collections. The main reason social history museums like the Esplanade collect things isn’t to build exhibits—it’s to preserve the objects that are witness to our history. We preserve these things so that present and future generations can learn from and enjoy them. But, it’s tough for a lot of people to learn from and enjoy a bunch of stuff on storage room shelves, so a portion of what we collect does go on exhibit, with explanatory text, and often with photos to help create a logical context for the artefacts. The exhibits themselves usually have a theme to them as well, also to help create context—otherwise, the stuff would just be a confusing jumble of unrelated things. Our permanent gallery’s theme is the history of Medicine Hat and surrounding district since about 1880 to present; temporary exhibits we’ve hosted have been on such themes as toys, ranching, prisoner of war camps, etc.
So, what about all this extra stuff, the stuff that’s not on exhibit? If the public can’t see it when they visit the galleries, why keep it? Well, we do draw upon that in developing our temporary exhibits—“Playful Revelations” in 2009 put 75 toys on exhibit that otherwise would have been in storage; our upcoming “Hand Made by Altaglass” exhibit will feature a couple of hundred Altaglass tools and products that otherwise aren’t normally on display. We also replace artefacts in our permanent gallery with one from storage—both to ensure there’s a regular infusion of new stuff to see, and also to make sure some items won’t be damaged by prolonged exposure to light.
We also collect items to document past ways of doing things. For example, we’ve got a Mountie uniform that, for some reason, was stuffed into the walls of the second Mountie barracks built in Medicine Hat around 1909. The uniform was only found when that building was torn down in the 1960s, to make way for the present Royal Canadian Legion building. You can probably imagine what clothing might look like after being stuck in a wall for 50 years—dirty, torn, and generally not in good shape for a display. But, we have it because it demonstrate what the Mountie uniform was like in 1909—the material it’s made from, how the fabric was cut, and sewn, etc.
We also occasionally have researchers come to us, to learn from our collections. In the past year, we’ve had someone from the University of Manitoba drop by to research Metis textiles in our collection; another museum researched what types of quilts and hand-woven textiles we have; and a collector came in to research our military medals. Something that we haven’t done a good job of advertising is that anyone can come to us as a “researcher” to gain access to our collections in storage—just call me (403-502-8587) to make an appointment, and I’ll be happy to show you what you’d like to see!
A lot of times people think that the entire museum collection is on exhibit. That’s not the case—we have about 1,000 objects on permanent display; about 4% of our collections. The main reason social history museums like the Esplanade collect things isn’t to build exhibits—it’s to preserve the objects that are witness to our history. We preserve these things so that present and future generations can learn from and enjoy them. But, it’s tough for a lot of people to learn from and enjoy a bunch of stuff on storage room shelves, so a portion of what we collect does go on exhibit, with explanatory text, and often with photos to help create a logical context for the artefacts. The exhibits themselves usually have a theme to them as well, also to help create context—otherwise, the stuff would just be a confusing jumble of unrelated things. Our permanent gallery’s theme is the history of Medicine Hat and surrounding district since about 1880 to present; temporary exhibits we’ve hosted have been on such themes as toys, ranching, prisoner of war camps, etc.
So, what about all this extra stuff, the stuff that’s not on exhibit? If the public can’t see it when they visit the galleries, why keep it? Well, we do draw upon that in developing our temporary exhibits—“Playful Revelations” in 2009 put 75 toys on exhibit that otherwise would have been in storage; our upcoming “Hand Made by Altaglass” exhibit will feature a couple of hundred Altaglass tools and products that otherwise aren’t normally on display. We also replace artefacts in our permanent gallery with one from storage—both to ensure there’s a regular infusion of new stuff to see, and also to make sure some items won’t be damaged by prolonged exposure to light.
We also collect items to document past ways of doing things. For example, we’ve got a Mountie uniform that, for some reason, was stuffed into the walls of the second Mountie barracks built in Medicine Hat around 1909. The uniform was only found when that building was torn down in the 1960s, to make way for the present Royal Canadian Legion building. You can probably imagine what clothing might look like after being stuck in a wall for 50 years—dirty, torn, and generally not in good shape for a display. But, we have it because it demonstrate what the Mountie uniform was like in 1909—the material it’s made from, how the fabric was cut, and sewn, etc.
We also occasionally have researchers come to us, to learn from our collections. In the past year, we’ve had someone from the University of Manitoba drop by to research Metis textiles in our collection; another museum researched what types of quilts and hand-woven textiles we have; and a collector came in to research our military medals. Something that we haven’t done a good job of advertising is that anyone can come to us as a “researcher” to gain access to our collections in storage—just call me (403-502-8587) to make an appointment, and I’ll be happy to show you what you’d like to see!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Looking Back, Looking Forward (The Move, Pt. 2)
Last week I discussed some of the measures that went into preparing our 25,000 artefacts to move from the old Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery into the new Esplanade. This week, I’ll finish the tale with the move phase, and the post-move work.
Prior to the move, I attended a workshop on preparing artefacts for shipping (I know—who knew there were workshops on stuff like that?). The instructor cautioned that the most vulnerable time for an artefact in transit, the time it’s most likely to be damaged, is when it’s handled by non-museum people. That was a pretty big factor in our decision to move most of the collection with museum staff, rather than use a moving company. We did use movers to handle about 70 of our biggest, heaviest, most awkward pieces (pianos, sofas, a Link trainer, shown in the above photo being loaded into the truck, etc.); the rest was carried out by museum staff and our wonderful volunteers.
Every box (almost 2500 of them) was numbered, and every artefact that went into each box was inventoried. Each box on every shipment out of the old building was recorded, whether that shipment was in a rented truck, the Museum’s van, or our Director’s private vehicle.
The first stuff to move was about 1,000 objects that needed to be installed in our Permanent Gallery. These moved mostly through the fall of 2005, and were all in place by the gallery’s opening on December 11, 2005. The rest moved in dribs and drabs through early 2006, then in a crazy two weeks in April (when we rented a 24 foot truck), the bulk of the collection moved downtown. A few more shipments were made in the Museum van through May and June, with the last shipment on June 26.
That was no where near the end of the move for us, though. Now we had about 24,000 pieces inside about 2300 boxes—that all had to be unpacked, checked against the box inventory, put on into a new storage location, and inventoried there. Several of our sainted volunteers from the packing/moving phase stayed with us through the unpacking, which took about two years. After that, one of our volunteers took on the job of entering all of our inventory data (which was recorded the old-fashioned way—with pencil on paper) into our collections database. That took about another two years, finishing up in early 2010. Meanwhile, our ever-faithful volunteers—we have four of them still, of the ones who originally signed up to help move—took on other projects; photographing the artefacts, data entry, conducting research, etc.
As in any move, though, there’s still the odd box or two that for some reason or another wasn’t unpacked. As of this writing, we have 90 boxes still outstanding. Some of these (at least 30) we know were in fact unpacked in the mad rush to complete the Permanent Gallery in December 2005; a few others look to have been counted twice, and several dozen packages, mostly containing one artefact apiece (a few floor lamps, a “Flood Relief” sign from the great flood of 1951, a stained-glass window, etc.) that are difficult to store, and that we haven’t unpacked just because we haven’t figured out just where to put them.
This brings me ‘round again to just why I’m explaining all this, at this time of year…
For 2011, the Esplanade Museum resolves to finally finish its 2005 move!
Prior to the move, I attended a workshop on preparing artefacts for shipping (I know—who knew there were workshops on stuff like that?). The instructor cautioned that the most vulnerable time for an artefact in transit, the time it’s most likely to be damaged, is when it’s handled by non-museum people. That was a pretty big factor in our decision to move most of the collection with museum staff, rather than use a moving company. We did use movers to handle about 70 of our biggest, heaviest, most awkward pieces (pianos, sofas, a Link trainer, shown in the above photo being loaded into the truck, etc.); the rest was carried out by museum staff and our wonderful volunteers.
Every box (almost 2500 of them) was numbered, and every artefact that went into each box was inventoried. Each box on every shipment out of the old building was recorded, whether that shipment was in a rented truck, the Museum’s van, or our Director’s private vehicle.
The first stuff to move was about 1,000 objects that needed to be installed in our Permanent Gallery. These moved mostly through the fall of 2005, and were all in place by the gallery’s opening on December 11, 2005. The rest moved in dribs and drabs through early 2006, then in a crazy two weeks in April (when we rented a 24 foot truck), the bulk of the collection moved downtown. A few more shipments were made in the Museum van through May and June, with the last shipment on June 26.
That was no where near the end of the move for us, though. Now we had about 24,000 pieces inside about 2300 boxes—that all had to be unpacked, checked against the box inventory, put on into a new storage location, and inventoried there. Several of our sainted volunteers from the packing/moving phase stayed with us through the unpacking, which took about two years. After that, one of our volunteers took on the job of entering all of our inventory data (which was recorded the old-fashioned way—with pencil on paper) into our collections database. That took about another two years, finishing up in early 2010. Meanwhile, our ever-faithful volunteers—we have four of them still, of the ones who originally signed up to help move—took on other projects; photographing the artefacts, data entry, conducting research, etc.
As in any move, though, there’s still the odd box or two that for some reason or another wasn’t unpacked. As of this writing, we have 90 boxes still outstanding. Some of these (at least 30) we know were in fact unpacked in the mad rush to complete the Permanent Gallery in December 2005; a few others look to have been counted twice, and several dozen packages, mostly containing one artefact apiece (a few floor lamps, a “Flood Relief” sign from the great flood of 1951, a stained-glass window, etc.) that are difficult to store, and that we haven’t unpacked just because we haven’t figured out just where to put them.
This brings me ‘round again to just why I’m explaining all this, at this time of year…
For 2011, the Esplanade Museum resolves to finally finish its 2005 move!
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