Excellent point. Take a good hard look at your collections. What's the largest piece. Is there a potential for an even larger piece.
We had to move our photo studio during a relatively recent renovation only to discover there wasn't any other room with a high enough ceiling to do proper photography for the big stuff - and we do have a lot of big stuff. They had to remove ceiling panels in their temporary quarters and then install blackout curtains over the skylights in their latest space.
We have multiple photo set-up through out the building working mostly with small to medium objects. The big pieces are always a problem regardless if they are sculptural or very large textiles.
Chrisso Boulis
Registrar Records
Penn Museum
------------------------------
Chrisso Boulis
Registrar, Records
Penn Museum - University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2021 04:58 PM
From: Sherry Best
Subject: Collections Processing Areas - Organization Tips and Tricks
Make your photography space about 3 times larger than you think you'll need it. You want room to back up the light fixtures and not have glare on things. Also room for white boards to reflect light. Or, separate photography setups for small, medium and big things. Get good lenses, including a good macro for closeups, and have a budget to replace the digital camera body every few years. The CCD backs go bad periodically and you start getting grey smudgy looking areas in the photos. If you stick with one brand of camera, the lenses should fit the new bodies if they have the same lens types.
------------------------------
Sherry Best
Collection Curator
Alice C. Sabatini Gallery - Topeka & Shawnee Co. Public Library
Topeka KS
Original Message:
Sent: 06-03-2021 07:10 AM
From: Chrisso Boulis
Subject: Collections Processing Areas - Organization Tips and Tricks
Kits and / or bins for all equipment and supplies at each of the stations. We have a mix of rolling kitchen/office/tool carts and shelving units with bulk bins or office supply drawers for bags, tags and whatnot. We open the supply boxes and move them to dispenser bins. Everything is visible. Looking for a pencil or discovering that all the sharpies are dry because someone keeps leaving the cap off them after use gets to be a nuisance. Signage also helps some of the time (if you take the last one, tell someone it needs restocking). That said, weekly check to make sure everything is adequately stocked because people forget to mention that you're out of gloves, papers, pencils. People get busy and forget. Housekeeping isn't so much of a problem except where you have boxes - they NEVER get thrown out until you have a fire inspection (been there!). So check your box area at least once a month so you don't have a floor to ceiling nightmare. Even worse that the box area are the object numbering kits - no one cleans the crow quill pens or brushes. So if all else fails, borrow a drill sergeant ;-)
Chrisso Boulis
Registrar Records
Penn Museum
------------------------------
Chrisso Boulis
Registrar, Records
Penn Museum - University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA
Original Message:
Sent: 06-02-2021 05:15 PM
From: Carrie Bowers
Subject: Collections Processing Areas - Organization Tips and Tricks
Greetings everyone! We're soon to be moving into a brand new, large space for artifact processing (photography stations, cataloging tables, boxing room, etc) - what are some of your best organizational tips and tricks for encouraging new habits and keeping work areas clean? Are there organizational systems you found that work or failed hilariously? I am all ears!
------------------------------
Carrie Bowers
Collections Manager
National Museum of the Marine Corps
Triangle VA
------------------------------