Connecting to Collections Care Online Community

Tracking Exhibit Props/Museum Equipment In A House Museum

Viewing 3 reply threads
  • Author
    Posts
    • #134959
      Kaitlyn Donaldson
      Participant

      I have updated our Collections Management Policy to distinguish between object donations that are in our permanent collection and objects in a teaching/museum equipment category and now I am working on how to track them all differently. We put a T in front of the accession number for objects in our teaching collection (T2016.___) and the teaching collection items are tracked in Past Perfect. Our house museum is set up as a 1920s home and there are props like towels, vases, etc that are neither in our teaching nor permanent collection. These prop items are things we expect to remove if/when a historic donation of importance comes in that could replace them. What would you suggest I do to track these items so that the person after me does not confuse them with permanent or teaching items? I was thinking of assigning a prop number – Prop 1, Prop 2, etc and tracking them in Past Perfect. Thanks in advance for your help!

    • #134969
      Sharon McCullar
      Participant

      Props are always an issue. If you track them then they have to be spot-checked just like actual artifacts or teaching collection objects. I have found that if the item is truly a prop that will be replaced with a better example as soon as it comes along that a generic mark of “prop” is OK, until you get someone in programs moving things around and suddenly the prop one program person is expecting to see in a room is in another and there is no tracking. This causes a list of “missing” objects to be generated but no real way to account for their actual location.
      Your Prop 1, Prop 2 concept sounds like a good compromise, maybe a simple Access database could suffice for tracking these expendable items. Our all interactive living history park program staff use a similar system and just keep adding numbers. As Collections Curator I have no responsibility for these Prop items and so no accountability when they get lost or broken. Good compromise for us.

    • #134971
      Kaitlyn Donaldson
      Participant

      Thank you!

    • #134973
      Evelyn
      Participant

      We use KLREPRO on our modern “props” what you call a teaching collection we call a working collection which are artefacts that can be physically “used” for whatever reason. We assign WC and an accession number on them. For props we don’t use a number as they are a headache to keep track of.

Viewing 3 reply threads
  • The forum ‘Connecting to Collections Care Forum Archives – 2015 through 2018’ is closed to new topics and replies.