Twenty Years of Conservation
Improvements through CAP
L.C. Bates Museum | CAP Year: 1993 |
The L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley, Maine preserves and interprets the L.C. Bates building, and the exhibits, collections and archives of the Good Will-Hinckley Home and School (a boys and girls home since 1889). The museum also collects, preserves and exhibits natural history, art, archaeology, and ethnographic items. Its historic early twentieth century exhibit cases are also preserved as a sort of ‘museum of a museum.’
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Exhibit Space Before CAP |
The Bates Museum participated in CAP in 1993. Collections assessor Kory Berrett and historic structure assessor Thomas Visser provided detailed reports that became essential working documents which informed the museum’s long-range plan. The validity that the CAP recommendations added to grant proposals helped the museum to raise well over $200,000 in capital funds to preserve the building and collections. Director/Curator Deborah Staber reports that in the years since completing CAP, the museum’s roof and chimneys have been restored, all the windows have been repaired and fitted with UV glass and shades, a handicap accessible entrance has been added, exhibition security has been improved, and the archival collection has been rehoused. Planning documents either improved or created since the CAP assessment include housekeeping, disaster management, collections planning, collections management policy and procedure, and an integrated pest management plan. Funds have also been secured over the years to increase training opportunities for the staff; staff attended 12 New England Museum Association conferences, developed and offered eighteen conservation workshops presented by professionals and conservators both for in-house staff and local rural museum staff and volunteers, and developed a volunteer training program.
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Storage After CAP |
The staff at the Bates Museum found their CAP assessors attentive and easy to work with. "During their visits to the museum the assessors provided much individual information about specific projects and suggested treatments that were in some cases more detailed than the reports. The assessors’ meetings with staff, board and volunteers gave everyone an opportunity to feel that they were part of the CAP process," said Staber. The Bates staff found the CAP process so successful that they were inspired to complete a ReCAP in 2008, the report from which is already being used to support planning for future preservation.
The LC Bates Museum’s staff continues in its conservation training and outreach efforts to this very day. Said Staber, "We have made copies of our reports available to other museums working on similar preservation activities and are in the process of developing an exhibition about the conservation process. We also have a 2009 workshop with conservator Ron Harvey scheduled on the conservation process for local museum staff."
Thanks to Deborah Staber for her help with this article.
Photos courtesy of The L.C. Bates Museum
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