Twenty Years of Conservation
Improvements through CAP
Fresno City College | CAP Year: 1997 |
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Temporary Collections Exhibit Space Before CAP |
The Fresno City College Museum of Anthropology was founded in 1977. Serving both students and the public, the California museum and curates both ethnographic and archaeological collections. In 1997, the museum participated in CAP. Collections assessor Nancy Odegaard made vital recommendations for the storage and organization of the archaeological collections. She also recommended covering the lights in the exhibition space with UV filters, the establishment of a new curatorial storage and work area, the need for environmental monitoring and disaster preparedness plans, and the creation of vital museum documents, such as a mission statement, collections policy, and accessioning documents.
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Space-Saver Shelving in New Space After CAP |
A few years after the assessment, Dr. Jill Minar was hired to teach at Fresno City College and her responsibilities included overseeing the Museum of Anthropology. Under her direction, increasing efforts were made to implement the CAP recommendations. She oversaw the installation of a new curatorial area and collections lab, which took two years. In the meantime, all of the Museum’s collections were gathered into the museum exhibit space on temporary shelving, and the much-needed organizing, bagging, tagging, boxing, and inventorying of the collections was done. In the summer of 2007, the curatorial area was completed and the collections were moved in. The new storage area is equipped with a security alarm system, a water fire-suppression system, and Space-Saver shelving for the non-organic collections of archaeological materials and ceramics.
Additional recommendations implemented since the 1997 CAP included the purchase of a computer, a digital camera and PastPerfect software to facilitate cataloging of the collections. The Museum was able to purchase these materials through various grants. In addition, data-loggers were purchased to monitor environmental conditions in the collections areas, and Dr. Minar researched and wrote the Museum’s mission statement, collections policy, environmental monitoring policy, and other vital museum documents.
Dr. Minar has this advice to give to museums that have recently participated in CAP: "Remember that the museum wasn’t built in a day and you won’t fix everything tomorrow! It is OK to have priorities change: be flexible. Have patience with yourself and the process." When implementing recommendations, she says "look at your resources in terms of time, staff, and money and the seriousness of the need. Then put the recommendations into two lists: things that can be done fairly easily and quickly and things that require more planning and fundraising." Planning and prioritizing are the keys to successful implementation of the CAP recommendations.
Thanks to Dr. Jill Minar for her help with this article.
Photos Courtesy of Fresno City College Museum of Anthropology
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