Shelving and Archival Storage Products for Rehousing Collections
Statewide Historic and Cultural Grants. $5,250,000 the first year and $5,250,000 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.
Available upon request. Contact
While the volunteers at WCHS are extremely pleased with the progress which has taken place since the storage and shelving grant has been received, it has been a bit overwhelming to fully understand the total scope of work that this project has brought.
While volunteers are still in the process of culling excess items from overcrowded exhibits and storing them in archival quality containers, our short term goal of re-housing improperly stored collections into archival quality containers is complete. Removal of additional excess items from exhibits will continue during the off-season this winter.
Our intermediate goal of doing a complete inventory is well under way. The additional industrial shelving from Menards has increased that type of shelving storage space at the museum by 33%. WCHS has realized that having this additional storage shelving space as well as the archival quality containers has facilitated an inventory process which has been extremely efficient. The most positive outcome is that all of the items which were previously improperly stored have been now been placed in archival quality containers, inventoried, and cross-referenced.
Completing the inventory has also had some unexpected surprises. For whatever reason, previous volunteers had "tucked" away some small treasures in the most of unlikely places. During the inventory process a volunteer came across an extremely small religious primer or catechesis book. Inside the front cover was the penciled autograph C. P. Ingalls. After cross-referencing the signature, it was discovered that the elementary text most probably belonged to the real patriarchal character from "Little House on the Prairie" fame.
Lastly, the long term goal of ensuring that the collections held at the Wabasha County Historical Society Museum in Reads Landing are now safe and secure has become a reality. There are now hundreds of items, both artifacts and archival, which will be available for research and exhibit for many decades into the future.
Available upon request. Contact