Collections Inventory Phase 2
To provide better organization of the museum collections, allowing for greater public access to the community's historic resources.
$5,982,000 the first year and $7,000,000 the second year are for statewide historic and cultural grants to local, county, regional, or other historical or cultural organizations or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources. Money must be distributed through a competitive grant process. The Minnesota Historical Society must administer the money 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. Contact: grants@mnhs.org
Contractors exceeded target of 1500 catalog entries added to CollectiveAccess and made available to the public via MNCollections, cataloging 2041 objects. This stood in contrast to the first phase, where we did not reach our target. A number of factors could account for this; workers in this phase seemed to possess a greater level of technological literacy, the objects being cataloged were smaller and required less time to describe them, and more information was available to us for the artifacts so less research was required. Findability and access targets were also achieved.
In line with the first phase of this project, we have included a line item for conservation treatment in our annual budgets. We have identified objects in need of conservation treatment and a schedule has been developed.
Artifacts from the second phase of the inventory have already been incorporated into museum exhibits, and we have identified items that do not fit within the scope of our collection and can be considered for deaccession.
Available upon request, grants@mnhs.org