By Karen Engelhart-Brown
How, What, Where
Create and run a small museum. Easily accessible knowledge from over twenty-five years experience as an exhibit collection preparator and curator.
Printed material available at cost, plus S & H.
If you want to print the information on this page,
please click on this link below, and a black and white copy suitable for printing will appear.
Printable material
FIRST STEP:
Purpose, Incorporation, Bylaws
Forming Your Group
Mission Statement, Policies, Procedures
Buildings, Grounds, Accessibility
Obtaining, Classifying, Registering, Accessioning
Volunteers, Employees, Docents
Methods, Integrity, Security
Planning, Spaces, Viewer Dynamics, Security
Go to www.Onlinecurator.com
FIRST STEP:
ORGANIZING:
GOVERNANCE:
LOCATION:
COLLECTION:
STAFFING:
STORAGE:
EXHIBITS:
Purpose
MY QUALIFICATIONS:
Information is essentially free, designed for volunteer non-professionals
who are starting up a small museum. The following is an example of the type
of information available on each of the above listed subjects.
When forming your group, start small! You need only five
dedicated people. They should have a love of local history and hopefully
some experience serving on a board of directors. It is best to have a
balance of ages and talent. If there are more than five interested people,
remind them that there will be need of their services in important
near-future positions. Include them in ALL your meetings. NEVER turn-down
volunteer help. Volunteers are special people willing to share their time
and talent and must be valued with respect, however small their contribution
may be. Everyone’s efforts are important to the success of your
organization. Choose a comfortable meeting site and time and length. The
shorter one hour meetings seem to be more efficient of people’s time. Have a
written agenda agreed upon by the group in advance of your meeting…
The first meeting agenda should establish your officers. The
minimum for beginning is a President, Vice President, Sec./Treasurer and two
board members. Don’t overload your group with too many board members. It
complicates the issue of scheduling meeting dates, times and decisions.
Next, decide exactly how you want to word your purpose for organizing. Some
examples of key words could be " mandate, educate, illustrate, exhibit,
inform, provide, establish, house, display, protect, research, conserve,"
etc. Whatever your purpose, how you state it becomes your "Mission
Statement". It should be brief, yet have an appeal to those from whom you
might seek support. The group should avoid being too specific and not mix
goals, objectives or methods in the mission statement. At your next meeting
you might want to begin discussing goals and procedures for meeting your
goals, to be followed by meetings to decide your Articles of Incorporation,
Bylaws, etc
More detail about mission statements, with samples and
suggestions on incorporating, bylaws and avoidance of "founders’ syndrome".
Choices of the type of building, starting with the use of
rental space, covering information on access, parking, work, exhibit and
storage spaces to cooperative multi-purpose buildings. Traveling exhibits
and use of store-front space are also discussed…
This section describes the procedures for accepting artifacts
and archives and how to "keep track" of them.
How to develop a "job" description, care and feeding of
volunteers, paid vs. volunteer help, stipends, types of positions needed and
the talented people to look for are available in this section…
Most of the information on this subject is covered in our
companion website: www.Onlinecurator.com. One very important policy note:
ALWAYS refer to the donated duplicate or not currently exhibited materials
in storage as the "STUDY COLLECTION." When setting up the "storage" and work
areas it is wise to devote a small space for serious research patrons. This
provides an area for supervised study of additional artifacts or archives
not on display, hence the reference "Study Collection".
Planning and obtaining materials, cases, etc. for exhibiting
your collection is referred to in this section. Advice on labeling, or not
labeling, donor credit, inventive use of local resources, style and content,
specific problems to avoid, how visitors perceive your "story" are explained
in detail…
It is the purpose of this site to provide professional information for the
non-professional volunteers starting or rebuilding a small museum, offering
inexpensive, simple techniques and organizational information.
Do the above subject samples inspire your interest?
It would be our ideal to provide all this information for free, but the
cost of paper, copying, mailing and the website rental requires us to
receive reimbursement to cover these costs. It is our mission to encourage
more "grass-root" groups to preserve their historical heritage by creating
small museums.
Educated as an Anthropologist, which included courses in museum techniques
and archaeology, I have taken additional courses in drafting, exhibit prep.,
curating, computer software adaptation, group dynamics, and viewer
psychology. Some of my experiences have been as follows: Assisted in various
departments of a natural history museum and research center ( California
Academy of Sciences)…Planned and directed a successful emergency recovery
project of burned archival data ( The Center for Advanced Studies in the
Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University)…designed and built over 60
exhibits illustrating natural history and historical events…organized and
catalogued 6,000 artifacts…advised several small museums in starting their
organizations and exhibits…have been working in the field for 40 years and
am a retired curator of 17 years recent experience.
CONTACT ME AT:
karal@snowcrest.net
Or by snail mail at:
P.O.Box 1284
Weaverville, CA 96093 USA
