Rehousing of Museum Collection to Pallet Rack Shelving
To improve collections care and management through proper storage.
$4,500,000 the first year and $6,500,000 the second year are for history programs and projects operated or conducted by or through local, county, regional, or other historical or cultural organizations or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources. Funds are to be distributed through a competitive grant process. The Minnesota Historical Society must administer these funds using established grant mechanisms, with assistance from the advisory committee created under Laws 2009, chapter 172, article 4, section 2, subdivision 4, paragraph (b), item (ii).
Available upon request. grants@mnhs.org
Short-term: We met the goal that the safety of the collection will be improved through the rehousing of 20% of the M's collection. So far through this project, 1,082 objects were safely rehoused.
Intermediate-term goal: We achieved our goal that researchers and M staff will have more access to the collection. M's staff were able to easily pull out 30 objects for guest curators to view at the end of June 2018. Placing them back to their location was also easy. The tall ladder slides between the shelves to reach items. And it is safer for the objects to be moved around by the new design because there is less crouching, less reaching, and wider aisles.
In addition to this, this past year, the M has allowed more guests than ever to have access to the space because viewing objects has become easier. Without objects in aisles, objects and guests are safe walking through the space. (Only guests with special permission and who have signed our non-disclosure agreement are allowed to storage, as it is a discreet location. These include curators and art donors.)
Before the rehousing project, simple processing and cataloging was a difficult and cumbersome task. Now with more shelving space, M staff can store their in-between projects in temporary locations, works can be pulled out to view and placed back in its home location. It has become a much more pleasurable place to work.
The rehousing project has also been an enormous positive step for the M as it prepared for its Phase 1 open and preparing for future exhibitions. Without this rehousing project, locating and pulling numerous objects for these future projects would have been nearly impossible. In the past month, we have been able to create a space for temporary storage of outgoing, incoming, research, and current acquisitions all at once because of the free space from the rehousing.
The reconfiguration plan was extremely detailed and thorough with much thought in the design as well as moving process. Because of this forethought, the rehousing was very smooth (no accidents!) and the design works as the team has planned it to.
Available upon request, grants@mnhs.org