Under the beautiful new roof of the Animas Museum is an exciting space just waiting to be used. The Museum's current priority is to improve care of the permanent collections by moving them into this new, secure, climate and pest controlled collections level.
Current storage areas are overcrowded and lack climate control, compromisisng both access to and preservation of artifacts. The move will enable us to protect these resources while making them more accessible for exhibits, research and programs.
The Museum owns and cares for a growing collection of 35, 000 objects, photographs, and documents important to the preservation and interpretation of local history. They date from the Archaic period through the present, concentrating in the 1880s through 1940s.
Previous grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities has enabled us to rehouse stored artifacts in clean conservation containers; build proper exhibit mounts using acid-free materials; catalog and document condition of objects; clean and conduct insect mitigation; and plan the move to the new curation space.
Objectives of this Collections Rehousing and Move Project are to:
1. Furnish the new collections space with a SpaceSaver compact mobile storage system and steel cabinets that meet museum conservation standards.
2. Utilize a consulting conservator to train the staff and volunteers.
3. Inspect and rehouse the collections for the move
4. Move the collections to the new fourth level of the Museum under supervision of a fine arts mover.
An additional public benefit of this project is that the collections move will vacate two rooms that are wheelchair accessible and ideal for public use.
