6/11/2013

The Different Types Of Quality Museum Storage

By Teri Farley


Many ways of storing museum quality artifacts involve preserving the artifact, organizing them, or mounting them. Each type of artifact might have a different form of museum storage and display. The type, value, and nature of the artifacts often dictates what the artifact is stored in. Some storage options are wood, Plexiglas, metal, glass, or other types of materials. What type of storage the artifact or artifacts need normally dictates the material used.

It is important to remember that storing an artifact does not have to be time consuming or overly complex. It is important to understand each of the methods of artifact archiving before using them to keep the artifacts from being damaged.

This is particularly important when a collection is rotated through the museum and then back into the archives. Many of the different options are meant for display purposes as well as archive purposes. These are the most comment methods are easily packed away for shipping or can be put on display as is with out having to change the type of case.

When a piece is archived it is normally put into a wooden crate and sealed. These often look like shipping crates and the artifacts are accompanied by packing material of some sort. If the artifacts are placed in a sealed crate that is clear it may be a case where if the artifact is exposed to air it can be damaged. Some artifacts are vacuum sealed so they cannot be damaged by changes in pressure.

Many of the museum archiving options are dictated by the size and shape of the artifact to be stored. Special cases have to be built for those artifacts that are oddly shaped such as a jawbone or a tooth. Most of the storage options for museums are custom built for the artifacts that they house.

When artifacts are just placed into an archive and not taken out again for a while, they are usually packed into crates. These crates are usually made from wood much like shipping crates are. The artifacts are packed together or individually depending on the type of artifact, method of storing it, and where the crate will be. Sometimes the crates are packed and shipped elsewhere and other times they are just stored.

Wooden crates are sometimes used in both shipping and storing artifacts. Each of these artifacts are usually put in a variety of packing materials. Some materials used are straw, Styrofoam peanuts, or cloth. Most of these materials are used so that the artifacts will not be damaged during transport. Most of the wooden crates can be used for different artifacts if the need arises. Regardless of the purpose the container museums generally keep several options on hand just in case they are needed.

Some of the museum storage options that museums decide to use are purely for security. Valuable artifacts are normally put into storage in safes or locked cases. Many different types of safes exist from small lock boxes to full sized wall safes. Some of the safes are also equipped with advanced security systems to protect the particularly valuable pieces in a collection of artifacts. Most of the art collections and valuable historic collections are housed in very sophisticated boxes, crates, safes, and vaults.




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