Reading List: Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections: A Practical Guide for Museums

Well look at me! I'm kind of so far sticking to this goal of reading through my pile of museum books to read! *pat on the back*  And now I'm back with another review!

I'd been reading Angela Kipp's blog "Registrar Trek" for a while, so I was really excited when she announced she was writing a book, and then again when she said it was being published. Her blog about the life of a registrar/collections manager was insightful and full of thought (well-written and thought out, as well "Huh, I never thought of that before. That's an interesting thing to keep in mind" thoughts), and often funny and crazy (Pictures of her driving a forklift always kind of scared me: "Do I need to learn how to drive a forklift to work in collections?!?"). So when her book came out, I immediately bought it, but then like so many other books I buy, it got put in a pile of books to read, and then sat there... and sat there... and sat there (as I suffered guilt about all the other books I was excited to read and bought... too many books, not enough time). Over the years, I read a few sections of the book that were relevant to something I was working on at the time, but I have only now read the whole book, cover to cover, and now I absolutely wish I had read it sooner!

One of things I love about this book is that it's not only about how to tackle the objects in a previously unmanaged collection (If you work in collections, or in a museum/historical society where you have access to the collections, you know what we're talking about: objects everywhere, piled up haphazardly, likely not in protective housing, maybe dirty; if you're the one who works with the collections, you know there are no numbers, no tags, no paperwork... *shudder*), but it's about the mindset you need to do the work. And it's not a "Get in there and get to it!" mindset; it's about focusing your time, your effort, your sanity, and even about knowing when to step away. Kipp gives us an overview and reminders on page 1 that immediately set the reader up for this work:

1. Think of the whole collection, not single objects.
2. You are a collections manager, now think like a project manager.
3. See the big picture, work in small steps.
4. Don't be spellbound by numbers.
5. You are not the white knight.
6. You are not a collections management machine.

She also includes "Logical Exits," which to me at first seemed like a loser's way of thinking ("What? You can't do the whole job? You're going to give up?!?"), but after I read about them, I realized that they make sense: There's a very good chance you can't do everything, either because the project is so large or there's not enough time, and sometimes you also just need to be able to step away for the sake of your sanity. Kipp includes 4 logical exits in working with and cleaning up previously unmanaged collections, and provides the reader with how to recognize and plan subsequent logical exits. As someone who pushes herself to exhaustion sometimes because she doesn't want to look like a failure, I appreciate that Kipp points out the importance of knowing these logical exits, "points at which you will have the collection in a condition that allows you to leave it for the next lucky person to take over [or to just step away for a while]... the points at which you can stop without risking that everything you've done so far... was a waste of time" (xii-xiii). 

But the book isn't just about being in the right frame of mind. Kipp talks about how to first tackle the mess, documenting where everything was when you first saw it; how to begin organizing the mess; how to organize the room it's going to go into; storage materials; dealing with the board, volunteers, and budgets; and even about making personal, human connections with other collections professionals, people in other industries, and people in your community who might be able to help you or advocate for you. She doesn't talk about nitty-gritty details like how to number a collection or which CMS to use; she leaves those aspects for other books. Instead, she starts waaaaaay back at the very beginning, which few other collections/museums books do. The numbering system or the database you use comes after you've been daunted by the scope of the collection/mess, and Kipp's book is one of the few (actually, the only one that I've seen, but she does reference a couple of others) that helps you tackle that daunting mess. 

Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections: A Practical Guide for Museums, 2016

Angela Kipp

173 pages

The upsides:

• This gives an overview of how to tackle collections messes, with great ideas of how to get started and the early steps you need to take.
• Logical Exits that can keep you sane or give you "a goal toward which you can work" (172).
• This book isn't just useful if you're starting at Square One. It's also good if you have some amount of organization and cataloguing, and her tips are useful even if you're decently organized and catalogued.
• Her writing and the included horror and success stories make you feel like you have a friend in this work and you're not alone. Others have been through similar issues and have lived to tell the tales. 

The downsides:

• I want a collections job even more now! I have so many ideas of how to jump in and get a mess under control! 

Overall: Yes, yes, read this! If you have the good fortune to work with a messy and unwieldy collection, you should read this book. If you have the good fortune to be the only person working with a messy and unwieldy collection, or you'll be leading a group that will work with the collection, you definitely should read this book. It won't give you all the answers, mainly because every situation is different, but it will give you a starting point, a healthy mindset, and plenty of good advice. 

Reading List: Active Collections

Hey! It's me again! Back with another book review!

I first heard about Active Collections, edited by Elizabeth Wood, Rainey Tisdale, and Trevor Jones, at a few of the virtual conferences I attended last year, and then later by a Collections professional who spoke to my Museum Studies class in the spring, and every presentation that centered around "We read Active Collections and incorporated it into our work" was absolutely eye-opening to me. The way the presenters spoke about the book and their new ways of working based on it was just... against everything I'd learned doing collections, but sounded so groundbreaking and inspirational. I was both aghast and intrigued. 

To start, essays here come from a range of disciplines, not just collections: there are historical aspects, psychological ("Why do we hoard? Why do we find it difficult to get rid of things?"), decolonization, consumerism, climate change... some things you might have realized on your own and things you might have never thought about before.  

The foreword prepares you that the essays will show how the field is "rethinking collections issues" and tells the reader that "we need flexible and practical solutions to managing collections" (xvii). And some of the rethinking is also reimagining and re-envisioning, and really does need to include a warning: there are some really creative and new ways of rethinking how to use your collection, including making objects available for being disassembled and studied or used to create new pieces of art. ("What?!? You want me to let people take apart artifacts?? You want me to give them away?? Are you insane?!?") But the whole point is if you have these objects, but you're not displaying them or using them to teach your audience, or they're not in good enough condition to display, then they're just stuff taking up space in some room that no one will ever see. And we have too much Stuff That No One Is Seeing Or Using, and it's costing us money and hurting the environment, so it's time to rethink what we do with that stuff. 

The upsides (including my favorite essays):

• "Tier Your Collections: A Practical Tool for Making Clear Decisions in Collections Management" [I loved this! A how-to for prioritizing your objects.]
• "Object Reincarnation: Imagining a Future Outside the Permanent Collection" [Freaky ideas! Totally go against our traditional thinking about preserving objects]
• "Do You Know What It Costs You to Collect?" [Use data and hard facts of money and budgets to show that we can't save everything!]
• "Hoarding and Museum Collections: Conceptual Similarities and Differences"
• "The Vital Museum Collection"
• "Activate Your Collection: 51 Questions to Reveal Inactivity"
• A number of the essays talk about the meaning of objects and trying to document their meanings. ("What?? Document meanings?! How?!? And that doesn't fit into our current dimensions/material/creator scheme of record-keeping!")
• I really liked the ideas a few of the authors had about having community/communal collections, working with other museums or organizations so you're not all collecting the same thing. Does each museum in the county need a 19th century tea kettle, or can just one have it and loan it to the other museums when they need a 19th century tea kettle to display or photograph? Of course, with that comes the implication that we're in contact with a network of museums, whether that's the museums in our community or museums that have a similar focus to ours. So these new methods of collecting and managing collections will require new ways of working, both within and outside of our own organizations... but that's kind of an invigorating idea, too! 
• I also tried to incorporate some of these ideas while cleaning/reorganizing/downsizing this summer: "I don't know the provenance of these posters (Where did I get them? When? Did someone give them to me? What's the story behind them?) and they're 10-year-old schedules of sports teams, so do I really need to keep them? Nope, recycle." "Do I *really* need 4 of those mugs from a drink-mix product?" (Okay, I failed at getting rid of the extra mugs [so far] because they're so adorable, but I at least thought about it!)

The downsides:

• So many bad habits to break! Wait... that's not a downside of the book; that's a downside of me!

Overall: I really appreciated this book -- the essays have so many new and good ideas, and eye-opening ways to look at collections, collecting, how we interact with our audiences, and how we let our audiences interact with our collections. 

Envisioning overcrowded and overflowing collections storage spaces, and thinking about statistics that say museums only display 2-10% of their collection, we know that our collections need help, and that our collections management practices need to be retooled. We can't accept every item offered to us, and we can't keep every item for all of time. We have to say no, we have to deaccession, we have to find creative ways to make use of the items we're not using; we can't keep doing things the way they've always been done. Otherwise, we're going to drown in seas of archival storage boxes. 

In theory, I'm on board. Rationally, I know we can't care for Everything Ever: weed out items, keep a few examples but not every example, keep the collection relevant, etc. When I try to imagine actually doing it, though, my scenario goes to "But I like having one of everything! I like seeing the evolution of objects!" If I'm ever in a position again where I have control over and responsibility for a collection, I'm going to take the advice and tips in Active Collections to heart, but I'll have to go through a deep-in-my-soul process of breaking some habits. 

Reading List: Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations

This book is described as a "nuts-and-bolts guide to how to do [exhibits] step by step." It's meant, as Graham Black says in the Foreword, to help build the skills base of staff and volunteers at small and medium-sized museums and give them "the confidence to experiment and innovate" (xv). Author John Summers says this will give you "a method and a process you can follow that will greatly increase the likelihood that you will be able to create [a good exhibit]" (xix), and that 

If you want to know what is involved in making exhibits, this book will show you the scope of a typical project. If you need to create an exhibit, the steps outlined here will lead you through from beginning to end. Even if you are just hiring contract professionals to create some or all of an exhibit, the information in this book will help you to understand their perspective on the project and lead to a more effective working relationship. (xx)

 

Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations, 2018 by John Summers, 190 pages

The upsides:

• A "nuts-and-bolts guide to how to [create exhibits] step by step that is suited to the resources typically available in small- to medium-sized institutions" (xix)
• Each chapter has what Summers calls a "checklist" at the end, basically a summary or a TL;DR.
• I really liked the section on how to create an Exhibit Brief
  

The downsides:

• I felt like this was a very broad and brief overview of exhibits (The Big Idea, layout, fabrication, etc.).
  

Overall: 

Given all the summary information about how this would empower small museums' staff and lead them from beginning to end of an exhibit, I just didn't get it. The chapter titles and subheadings (Audience, The Exhibit Development Process, The Big Idea, The Brief and Request for Proposals, Text, etc.) sound like this would be a great resource, but I still felt like this was just skimming the surface. This felt like it was general guidelines and not like we're actually going anywhere big or specific. If you go with the statement above that talks about "the steps outlined here," then I guess it succeeds: this is just an outline of steps, which may give you a general map of how to create an exhibit, but doesn't give a lot of tips or advice on how to make it good. All of the other reviews of this book (which, granted, I couldn't find many of) think this is a great book, so maybe I'm just so uncreative and un-exhibit-minded that this book didn't touch me. There were some helpful parts, though, so this wasn't all a waste: a few accessibility guidelines, installation/viewing height guidelines, font samples, tools you need to build your own exhibit furniture (which is way beyond anything I'll ever do), and other tips, plus the Exhibit Briefs section was great; I just didn't see it as the same wonderful resource other reviewers did. I may refer back to it at some point, but I'll definitely look for other books about creating exhibits. 

Reading List: Community-Based Exhibition Model by Cassie Chinn

Long ago, when I first really started getting into the idea of working in a museum, there was a post on LinkedIn asking for recommendations for good books about exhibits. One of the books listed was Community-Based Exhibition Model from the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, so I put it on my list of books to read someday (although I couldn't find it for sale anywhere).

This past September, I attended the American Association of State and Local History's virtual conference, which had a number of staff members from the Wing Luke Museum presenting sessions. In their sessions, Cassie Chinn and Rahul Gupta each touched on the idea of partnerships with the community, and in other sessions, both from presenters and attendees, the Wing Luke's community-based model -- the book, and the general idea -- were mentioned. That made me want the book even more.

In October, Jessica Rubenacker, current exhibits designer at the Wing Luke, spoke to one of my Museum Studies classes; I LOVED listening to her, which made me decide I Need This Book Now. I was finally able to find it for sale on the museum's website (why didn't I ever look there before??).

In this short book (26 big-sized pages, with charts and images), Cassie Chinn describes the museum's process for creating their community-based exhibits, where museum staff let community members guide the development of exhibits -- including themes, education and public programs, sources for artifacts and interviews, and even fundraising -- and uses the 2005 "Sikh Community: Over 100 Years in the Pacific Northwest" exhibit as a case study for their approach.

The upsides:

• The chart of the community-based model, showing how the Community Advisory Committee, participating community members, museum staff, and contractors all relate to each other and work together. 
• How to select Advisory Committee members and community partnerships  
• The meeting schedule - Chinn lays out what topics are covered at each of their (sample) meetings (Meeting 1 is introductions, sharing project background, presenting a timeline; Meeting 4 is creating the exhibit's storyline; etc.)
• How to facilitate a meeting with the Advisory Committee, a lot of which are just good points for leading any kind of meeting (making sure everyone's voice is heard, sending meeting minutes, respecting people's time, etc.)
  
• The Sikh exhibit case study shows in more detail how the theoretical model and timelines presented earlier in the book play out for real
  
• The honesty about what worked and what got the Sikh exhibit project off schedule
  
• The honesty about challenges presented overall by this model 
• In the AASLH sessions as well as sessions of the New England Museum Association's virtual conference on working with the community and partners, over and over panelists talked about being flexible, giving up control, and admitting that you don't know everything, and these key points are also highlighted in this book. 

The downsides:

• I would have liked maybe one more case study. The Sikh exhibit study gives good insight, but a second example could have possibly presented even more highlights and lowlights (things that worked and things that didn't) that the reader could learn from, and could also show how the museum learned from the challenges of the Sikh (or a previous) exhibit. Then again, this book was written soon after the Sikh exhibit was completed, so perhaps if they had an updated version, there would be more projects available to use as case studies.

Overall: A good tutorial for people who want to create exhibits with their community. The Wing Luke obviously has a great connection with their community and partners (otherwise they wouldn't want to help the museum with their exhibits), and Chinn does a nice job of presenting the framework for a community-based project.

Community-Based Exhibition Model
by Cassie Chinn