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  • 1.  Unpacking plan for large collection moves

    Posted 09-22-2021 10:25 AM
    Hello all,
    Does anybody that has been through a big collection move have an unpacking plan they would like to share? We are currently packing up our entire collection (60,000+ artifacts) to move into a new storage facility. As part of your plan do you include your numbering system for locations and if not would you be willing to share that as well? Any thoughts, suggestions, plans would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

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    Kendra Newhall
    Registrar
    Montana Historical Society
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    AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo, Baltimore, May 16-19, 2024, click to learn more


  • 2.  RE: Unpacking plan for large collection moves

    Posted 09-23-2021 10:39 AM
    When we moved the entire American Civil War Museum, I measured every large-scale object's footprint and height, way ahead of time, then worked with the guys building the storage so that we had x linear feet of furniture storage whose second shelf was above 105" high and y linear feet that was only 46" and so on and so forth and mapped out the footprint of each major bulky piece on the platforms where they were being tetris-ed into, with blue tape and their numbers, so that every time a big piece came off the truck, it could go directly to its final destination and not crowd up the loading dock.  
    We were re-using giant boxes with trays, about 30 of them every 2-3 days, because the bulk of our collection was going from trays and drawers into other trays and drawers, and not living in boxes.  So items were wrapped and padded, trucked across town, then unpacked.  It helped to have pre-determined zones for each type of item.  These ten trays just for holsters, those three drawers for spyglasses, etc.  The thing that made that possible was a complete box-by-box and drawer-by-drawer assessment of what we currently had in storage, the type and amount of storage it currently took up, and whether it needed to be resituated and how much space that rehousing might take up.  That way, we designed the entire storage space to have predestined room for everything. 
    The thing I didn't know is just how much stuff was hiding in nooks and crannies, and we had perhaps another 10% of mass of objects and archives just "discovered" during the move, and I had to scramble to arrange.  Like why is there a statue head underneath the fire escape stairs??? True story.  So leave yourself more room than you think, for generations of "we'll get to it later"s that you're going to discover.   
    OH and numbering, our Spacesaver storage that we designed was fairly straightforward, with rows of shelving and drawers and trays, and a few rows of painting racks.  Our numbering system goes aisle A through R, "bay" each section of that aisle left to right, some have 3, some have 11.  Then shelf 1 through 6, or tray 1-20 etc.  If there was a shelf or two above a bay of trays it went shelf one, tray one, because despite being the second area in a bay from top down, it was still the first tray.  Makes sense?  It has been much more straightforward than "outer wall storage 8" like the last place. 



    AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo, Baltimore, May 16-19, 2024, click to learn more


  • 3.  RE: Unpacking plan for large collection moves

    Posted 09-30-2021 05:42 PM
    Hi Kendra!

    I've moved the entire museum collection about 30,000 objects though I don't know if mine would be a great case study.  I wish we had the time to layout the new storage and measure out especially where each large object would go but our move came out of the blue.  After an initial push to get one area of the old storage cleaned out so that a electrical renovation could happen in the Capitol we could take our time to move the rest of the collection in all we took two years to complete it.  We were actually in the midst of the first complete inventory of the collections and getting records into PastPerfect so we were really working blind which didn't help with extensive planning. Thankfully we didn't have to move anything that wasn't already inventoried but the collection was by no means sorted by object type or material.  So there was no preplanning for efficient use of the new space.   We were able to buy a couple of new storage cabinets with drawers and shelves and shelving units.  So what we did was set up the new cabinets in the same configuration as the one we were moving.  We moved the contents and then brought the empty cabinet over to the new facility, set it up like the next cabinet to be moved are repeated the process.  Definitely not ideal. Our move sheets documented the former location and the new location so that if there were any issues we had not only the location history in the database but a paper trail as well.  We never expected it would take 8 years to get a chance to organize the collection by object type and materials to make efficient use of the space.  In 2017 we got a grant to get compact shelving in 2 of the storage rooms.  We had to move everything out so the units could be installed.  We boxed everything by shelf/drawer and put everything from one cabinet or shelf on the same pallet to move to temporary storage.  After the compact shelving was installed we moved everything back to where it was.  the compact shelving increased our storage space exponentially so we then had the room to organize storage.  We went to work organizing objects in those two rooms by object type and material.   Some things groupings were easier to pre-determine the amount of new storage it would need.  Others were tougher and I had to pull it and see how much space it required once was rehoused properly and then determine where it would go in storage.  Its still not ideal but it is 1,000 times better then it was before.   I probably didn't answer your questions but I do have experience with a couple of different moves so if you want to contact me offline via e-mail or phone I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have and it would be great to catch up. 

    Sincerely, 
    Katie (Keil) Owens
    Curator of Collections
    Missouri State Museum
    573-522-1980
    Katherine.owens@dnr.mo.gov

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    Katherine Owens
    Curator of Collections
    Missouri State Museum
    Jefferson City, MO
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    AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo, Baltimore, May 16-19, 2024, click to learn more