Care of Collections

The Peterborough Museum & Archives had several boxes of artifacts that required rehousing. Fortunately, as a student of the Museum Management and Curatorship Program at Fleming College, I was able to work in the Curatorial Centre for an afternoon and assist them with this job.

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I spent my time rehousing ceramic and glass artifacts. Most artifacts were already individually wrapped in polyethylene or bubble wrap with tape and then placed inside their bag, so my first step was to unwrap each object and discard the old packing materials. Then I determined whether each object required individual wrapping or if sandwiching the artifacts between two sheets of polyethylene was an appropriate option.

 

 There were a lot of shards that required rehousing and for those I used the sandwiching technique. I also made sure to write on the bag "KEEP FLAT" for others who will access the artifacts in the future. For larger, more in-tact pieces, I wrapped them individually in polyethylene to prevent the artifacts themselves from absorbing any potential shock from movement and vibrations before placing them back inside their corresponding bag.

 

Once the artifacts were placed back inside their bags, I put them back into their container. This was a bit difficult at times as each object occupied more space once they were wrapped in polyethylene. It was important to pack them in a way that ensured each artifact was not experiencing any sort of pressure, but after some rearranging, the artifacts fit back inside their boxes. 

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This was a really beneficial learning experience. I learned proper artifact handling techniques, how to properly rehouse artifacts of different shapes and sizes, various packing methods and I was able to gain experience doing a common collections task.