Visit to Albury Library/Museum: MAD Museum visits Albury Library/Museum

Visit to Albury Library/Museum: MAD Museum visits Albury Library/Museum: On Thursday the 3 rd November Gail and Karen went into see the storage areas of The Albury Library/Museum to see how the bigger museum do...

MAD Museum visits Albury Library/Museum

On Thursday the 3^rd November Gail and Karen went into see the storage areas of The Albury Library/Museum to see how the bigger museum does “best museum practice” storage of their valuable artefacts.

Bridget Guthrie who is the Museum and Social History Co-ordinator, met us.
Bridget took us to an environmentally controlled room where items such as, photo’s books, painting, plans, and some textiles are protected from the damaging effects of varying temperature, humidity, light, bug and insect problems!
Bridget showed us, their acid free box storage area, and their photo storage system.  A good cost saving tip given to us was to place original photos in oven bags then store them into metal cabinets.
Gail also learnt how to pad & store our valuable girls’ dresses with acid free paper and then placing in an acid free box. Bridget then gave us a large polypropylene box and lid to store such items in.

We then drove to another storage area in Thurgoona where the items that do not need such climate controlled rooms were kept.  Larger items such as furniture were stored here but still covered with dust clothes where needed. They even had a collection of flat irons much like ours!
This area was divided into three spaces, from an area with not much climate control, a second space with a little bit more climate control and then a controlled area with air conditioners, which is what our storage space should aim for.
This was a very insightful visit, where the main thing that we learnt from Bridget, was that “best museum practice” storage is something that seems to be a never ending project.  Bridget advised us to start with identifying and storing our most significant artefacts, e.g. our girls’ dresses, ledgers & photos etc, concentrate our efforts, time and money on conserving and preserving these items so that they will still be here in years to come and in a good condition.