Twenty Years of Conservation
Improvements through CAP
Athens County Historical | CAP Year: 2007 |
The Athens County Historical Society and Museum (ACHS&M) in Athens, Ohio preserves and exhibits over 40,000 items, including genealogies, family histories, and material culture artifacts that illustrate the history of the southeastern Ohio county. The ACHS&M participated in CAP in 2007 and worked with collections assessor Laurie Booth and historic structure assessor Lorri Sipes. The CAP reports confirmed what the museum staff already suspected – one of their top priorities was to create a collections database and inventory and organize the museum’s entire collection. With only two full time and two part time paid staff members, this would be a large undertaking for the museum.
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Storage Space Before CAP | Storage Space After CAP |
For help with this project, Executive Director Kelee Riesbeck established a partnership with Ohio University's Undergraduate History Association (UHA), the University’s History Department, and history and archaeology students from the University’s Honors Tutorial College. This partnership and outreach to student volunteers aims to match history undergraduates in the Association and other interested undergraduates with professionals in the museum and historical society fields. Since the start of these efforts in April 2009, twenty-seven student volunteers have worked at ACHS&M as archive assistants, exhibit assistants, and local history researchers. In five months, the students have already made quite an impact: over 4,000 of the collection’s 40,000 objects have been reassessed, cataloged into the Past Perfect database, and housed in archival boxes. The Museum garnered funds through both grants and donations for a building remodeling project this fall, which will include the installation of new shelving for collections storage.
When asked what advice she would give to museums participating in CAP, Riesbeck replied, "Even though the CAP report may give you best practices recommendations that you may not think it’s possible to implement, focus on the prioritizing. Do the things that were given the short-term priority first, then focus on the rest of the recommendations when your institution can properly fund-raise for them. Also, don’t underestimate the usefulness of the CAP report for fundraising – it helps sell the future vision of the museum. Try to mention CAP or its recommendations on your museum’s website, Facebook, anywhere you can."
Thanks to Kelee Riesbeck for her help with this article.
Photos courtesy of The Athens County Historical Society and Museum
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