Explorations In Collections Care: Martin And Osa Johnson Glass Negatives In The Permanent Collection At The George Eastman House

This paper discusses a professional practical project that dealt with the collections care undertaken for one instance of found-in-collections material. Consisting of 336 four-by-five and five-by-seven gelatin glass plate negatives by American travel and wildlife filmmakers Martin and Osa Johnson, the material had been cared for in the vaults of the permanent collection at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film for many years without the establishment of official acquisition or public accessibility. The project discussed in this paper involved the trajectory of care required to make the Johnson material available, including provenance research, official acquisition, registration documentation, cataloguing, and housing improvements. The paper discusses this process, analyzing decisions made from issues of arrangement to culturally-sensitive description in associated cataloguing records. Finally, this paper suggests avenues for potential use of the Johnson material, arguing for the possibilities afforded by accessibility.

Explorations In Collections Care: Martin And Osa Johnson Glass Negatives In The Permanent Collection At The George Eastman House

This paper discusses a professional practical project that dealt with the collections care undertaken for one instance of found-in-collections material. Consisting of 336 four-by-five and five-by-seven gelatin glass plate negatives by American travel and wildlife filmmakers Martin and Osa Johnson, the material had been cared for in the vaults of the permanent collection at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film for many years without the establishment of official acquisition or public accessibility. The project discussed in this paper involved the trajectory of care required to make the Johnson material available, including provenance research, official acquisition, registration documentation, cataloguing, and housing improvements. The paper discusses this process, analyzing decisions made from issues of arrangement to culturally-sensitive description in associated cataloguing records. Finally, this paper suggests avenues for potential use of the Johnson material, arguing for the possibilities afforded by accessibility.

Conservation survey, condition report and collections care proposal for the World War I portrait collection at State Records of South Australia

This practical thesis project report contains a conservation survey, condition report and collections care proposal for the World War I portrait collection at State Records of South Australia. The plan prescribes immediate, short term and long term recommendations for the improvement of preservation techniques for the World War I collection. The paper also contains information and results gathered through the condition report of the collection sample and conservation survey. The survey investigated the current environment and storage facilities, access, security and disaster planning surrounding the collection. The paper also outlines the practices and methodologies of the applied thesis for both the conservation survey and condition report. The collection care proposal assesses current practices in order to provide State Records with accurate goals that offer flexible options. A detailed list of housing recommendations is included in the proposal; an advantages and disadvantages assessment if included for each option to help State Records better fit its needs and abilities in the future. Charts showing the results of the condition report and environmental assessment from the conservation survey are included in the appendix for further reference. This project is intended to draw attention to the urgent need for better preservation practices for the World War I portrait collection.

Conservation survey, condition report and collections care proposal for the World War I portrait collection at State Records of South Australia

This practical thesis project report contains a conservation survey, condition report and collections care proposal for the World War I portrait collection at State Records of South Australia. The plan prescribes immediate, short term and long term recommendations for the improvement of preservation techniques for the World War I collection. The paper also contains information and results gathered through the condition report of the collection sample and conservation survey. The survey investigated the current environment and storage facilities, access, security and disaster planning surrounding the collection. The paper also outlines the practices and methodologies of the applied thesis for both the conservation survey and condition report. The collection care proposal assesses current practices in order to provide State Records with accurate goals that offer flexible options. A detailed list of housing recommendations is included in the proposal; an advantages and disadvantages assessment if included for each option to help State Records better fit its needs and abilities in the future. Charts showing the results of the condition report and environmental assessment from the conservation survey are included in the appendix for further reference. This project is intended to draw attention to the urgent need for better preservation practices for the World War I portrait collection.

Innovative or Not? The Effects of Consumer Perceived Value on Purchase Intentions for the Palace Museum’s Cultural and Creative Products

A museum’s core activities traditionally focus on such areas as collections’ care, exhibitions and scholarship. Income generation, including retail activities, is considered secondary. Academic research into museums’ merchandise, especially into the perceived value and purchase intentions, is limited. Drawing on literature embracing both core museum functions and marketing, this research, based on the Palace Museum in Beijing, China, explores the impact of the perceived value of a museum’s cultural and creative products on purchase intentions. Combining the results of in-depth interviews with museum visitors and experts, this study defines a construct composed of six perceived value dimensions, namely quality, social, price, innovation, educational, and experience values. A relationship model of perceived value and purchase intentions is proposed. Some 346 valid survey responses were obtained by distributing a questionnaire online and on-site at the Palace Museum, and hypotheses were tested by structural equation modelling. Results showed that innovation and experience values have a significant positive effect on purchase intentions, while quality, social, price, and educational values had no significant influence on purchase intentions. This research outlines feasible strategies and actions for the development of cultural and creative products at museums that have a strong tourism role.

A Curiosity of Cabinets: Collections Care as Community Care

As museum and library doors shuttered in response to COVID-19, digital portals opened new possibilities for centering collections as an antidote to social isolation. A joint effort between the University of Kansas’s (KU) Spencer Museum of Art and KU Libraries demonstrates how the constraints of physical distancing as a preventive health measure prompted the creation of a “hands-off,” yet interactive series of programs about preventive conservation strategies to apply to collections at home. The goal was to sustain a sense of community with Friends of the Museum and Friends of the Libraries by triangulating among institutional collections, examples from staff members’ homes, and the invitation for Friends to share their collections. As the series evolved with the pandemic, the role and messaging of collections care shifted as an act of community care. This article will discuss the process, challenges, and impact of this collaboration.

A Long View of Archaeological Collections Care, Preservation, and Management

Collections care practices have become professionalized in the last 30 years, in large part because of the work of organizations such as the American Alliance of Museums, the Canadian Conservation Institute, the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, the American Institute for Conservation, and others in the museum sphere. Advances in preservation and management have benefited the discipline of archaeology in the field and laboratory. This thematic issue provides an updated perspective on the current happenings in the repository, highlighting innovative techniques and practices that collections specialists employ when managing the archaeological record. This article considers a macroview of the issues surrounding archaeological curation today and ponders what the future of collections preservation can and should look like.

Affective Collections: Care Practices in Digital Community Archives

This paper will present the literature, theoretical framework, and preliminary findings of my MLIS/MA thesis. My research explores how digital community archives use participation-based methods to build a feminist ethics of care into the archival process. These participation-based methods encourage community members to contribute to the collecting, describing, and creating of records. I will use thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis to explore communitymade content associated with the Flin Flon Heritage Project and Harvest Moon Oral History. I am specifically exploring how community archives could enact an ethics of care through the use of care practices in a digital environment.

Collections Assessment in Libraries, Archives, and Museums: The Challenges and Advantages of Universal Condition Assessment Tools and Language

Condition assessments have long been a tool for preservation professionals to develop collections care practices and establish treatment priorities. Although collections vary greatly among libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs), similarities exist in our approaches and recommendations for storage, handling, exhibit, and treatment prioritization. In addition, few institutions exist whose collection strictly contains a single format of material—almost all LAMs hold some variety of materials. To date, however, our approaches to assessment have been siloed into our respective areas, with tools available for each collecting area or object type. This article examines the history of condition assessments, reviews existing tools and efforts, and argues the value of building more unified efforts in condition assessment tools to better merge LAM vocabularies and preservation efforts. This article further serves as a call to action to develop cross-disciplinary applications to help professionals more effectively administer collections care and evaluate preservation priorities of mixed collections.