Museum Studies in Motion Spring 2015
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Be at the center of things.
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Volume 7, Issue 2
NEWSLETTER OF THE MUSEUM STUDIES PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
Oh Ship! The 2015 SWAT Team This January, twelve Museum Studies students traveled to the beautiful town of Milton, Delaware to take part in the sixth annual SWAT Team project. Allison Schell, Executive Director of the Milton Historical Society, approached the University of Delaware looking for help managing the museum's collection. Containing a variety of artifacts - tools, paintings, books, photographs, ephemera - that tell the story of life in Milton, the collection needed to be accessioned, labeled, and rehoused, and its storage space rearranged. The SWAT team was on the case! Over the course of two weeks, students created records for more than 650 objects, assigning them numbers, describing their attributes, and photographing them. Two of the more challenging objects the team encountered were a collection of deteriorated pharmaceuticals and a nineteenth-century cobbler's bench. Some SWAT team members focused on cleaning textiles, while others fitted historic books for custom-made boxes. Schell was delighted with the work the SWAT team accomplished. "With your help," she told the students, "the museum was able to embark on several exciting projects. We are creating a new digital archives website, a first for the area. We have gotten a new shed out back that non-collection materials can be placed into. And we now have a better understanding of projects volunteers can work on to keep on top of our collections backlog."
Congratulations!
Image: Heather Gerling (left) and Sequoia Barnes (right) evaluate hats for cleaning needs.
12 students receive the Museum Studies certificate Center for Historic Architecture and Design
Heather Gerling Megan Hutchins
In this issue...
Fashion and Apparel Studies
Sequoia Barnes History
2015 SWAT Project, pg. 1 Director's Message, pg. 2
Rachael Beyer Jennifer Ferris Gregory Hargreaves Della Keyser Elisabeth Maselli Longwood Graduate Program in Public Horticulture
Felicia Chua Sara Helm Wallace Sarah Leach Smith
DE Academy of Medicine pg. 3 SMA Report, pg. 4
Winterthur Program in Early American Culture
Neal Hurst
www.udel.edu/museumstudies
Director’s Message KATHERINE GRIER kcgrier@udel.edu Every spring I begin this message with a clichÊ about how quickly the school year has passed. I've run out of synonyms and clever ways to say it (which doesn't make the observation any less true). Since our last newsletter, the Museum Studies students tackled the collections of the Milton Historical Society in Kent County, DE, for our annual Collections SWAT Team service project. As always, we learned a lot about the realities of collection management in small organizations. This time, students dealt with material culture ranging from military uniforms to antique medical equipment and supplies. I especially liked a collection of souvenirs of Milton town celebrations. The staff and community friends of MHS were welcoming and generous to the students and, as we always do, we made new friends for the program. Museum Studies courses this spring included Curatorship and Collections Management, where Frank McKelvey's students took on the collections of the Delaware Academy of Medicine, and Museums and Technology, where our students received a thorough grounding in a variety of software - and developed newfound confidence in their digital skills - thanks to adjunct professor Mike Zarafonetis. Our longtime friend and instructor Tim Goeke offered a one-credit class on digital publishing and publication design. This is an example of our new array of one-credit,
"skill-builder" classes. I'll share more news about these classes in the next issue of the newsletter. Sustaining Places, the three-year project funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, is almost completed. Soon I'll prepare our final report, evaluating the successes and challenges of our work. Developing and executing training experiences for the paid and unpaid staff of small historical organizations taught us valuable lessons about what these dedicated folks do and the challenges they face in building sustainable institutions. We hope to use what we've learned in developing a new set of training opportunties using the most important product of Sustaining Places, our website. Thanks to a cohort of dedicated and talented graduate assistants supported by the grant, SustainingPlaces.com is an encyclopedic collection of resources for small historical organizations, offering access to information on best practices for everything from the basics of governance to do-it-yourself collections care. The Museum Studies Program will continue to maintain and "grow" this website as part of our service to the field. This spring, twelve students are receiving their Museum Studies certificates. We look forward to sharing news of their achievements through our new website, our Facebook page, and this newsletter. Please continue to share your own achievements with us! Also, I am very far behind on my "thank you" notes, but I want you to know that if you have donated to the Museum Studies Program, you can expect a personal note from me soon. We are grateful for your support of our program.
SWAT Team members at the Milton Historical Society on the first day of the service project. Pictured from left to right are: Back Row: Ashley Giordano, Travis Olson, Sequoia Barnes, Megan Hutchins, Heather Gerling, Betsy Keene, Jenn Briggs, Emma Gencarelli; Front Row: Nicole Belolan, MHS Executive Director Allison Schell, and MSST Director Kasey Grier.
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Curatorship Students Care for Medical Collection
Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - Spring 2015
Left: Students in MSST 601 with Delaware Academy of Medicine Executive Director Tim Gibbs and Instructor Frank McKelvey. Pictured from left to right are: Nicole Worthley, Julia Wood, Della Keyser, Tim Gibbs, Frank McKelvey, and Alex Ames. Not pictured: Adam Underwood. Below: Nicole Worthley inventories and describes a collection of historic medicines in glass bottles.
The Delaware Academy of Medicine (DAM) in Newark is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting public health and medical education. It also happens to be home to a sizable collection of medicine-related artifacts, including historic medical instruments, nurses' uniforms, and doctors' bags. Led by Executive Director Timothy Gibbs, DAM has a talented staff of medical and public health professionals, but unfortunately no one trained in collections care. After hearing about DAM's predicament from a member of its board, adjunct professor Frank McKelvey thought it would be a great place for MSST 601 students to apply the approaches and techniques they had learned in the classroom. The class, which included both graduate and undergraduate students, began by overhauling the collections storage area to maximize space and add a workbench. Students extensively monitored the storage area, as well as the exhibition spaces, for light damage, humidity damage, exposure to dust, and signs of pest infestation. Before they could begin working with the object collection, students had to relocate DAM's large collection of books, among which students discovered a rare sixteenth-century medical text. By the end of the semester, students had inventoried the majority of DAM's medical artifacts and rehoused them, as needed, according to best practices. In addition to learning how to care for a variety of materials such as glass, copper, steel,
and wood, students became "residential experts" in subjects of their choosing. Senior history major Nicole Worthley, for example, studied the care of leather medicine bags, and graduate student Della Keyser wrote a guide for museums with historic medicines in their collections. McKelvey and his students provided DAM staff with training and a list of recommendations to maintain the momentum. Adam Underwood, Assistant to the Executive Director at DAM and a participant in the class, will assume responsibility for the collection after the class ends.
Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - Spring 2015
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Strong Showing at SMA, Despite Snow Students Go Behind the Scenes A snowstorm cut short the 2015 Small Museum Association Conference this past February, with many attendees reluctantly leaving early to beat the weather. Nevertheless, Museum Studies students, alumni, and faculty benefited from the experience as they attended sessions and networked with museum professionals. Director Kasey Grier organized a second iteration of the Sustaining Places workshop "Board S.O.S," presented by Armand Battisti, MSST faculty member, and Kim Andrews, Executive Director of the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Philadelphia. Graduate student Jennifer Ferris led a discussion on museum education and Common Core requirements. In anticipation of her upcoming book on web development for museums, alumna Kelsey Ransick presented on the basics of web design.
This winter the Museum Studies Program inaugurated the experimental undergraduate course MSST 385: History Behind the Scenes. The brainchild of Director Kasey Grier, the class embarked on a series of field trips to local museums, where students met with staff members and learned about the rewards of the job and everyday challenges they face. On the schedule was the Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover, Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, the Museum of the American Revolution facility in Malvern, and New Castle Historical Society. The Museum Studies Program heartily thanks all participating organizations.
Return of Bug Man, Tom Parker On March 27 entomologist Tom Parker returned to the University of Delaware to lead another creepy, yet wonderful workshop on integrated pest management. Participants spent the afternoon learning how to identify, prevent, and treat infestations. From mice to moths, beetles to bats, Parker covered all the bases of pest control. The free workshop, which was attended by UD students as well as representatives from local museums, was organized by Sustaining Places.
Sustaining Places Website Redesigned Through the hard work and creative vision of graduate assistant Betsy Keene, Sustaining Places has proudly introduced a newly-redesigned site. The new website features a more user-friendly interface that will make it easier for visitors to access the hundreds of SP resources. Recently added resources include a Two-Minute Technique on museum security, a guide to caring for stuffed toys, and a guide to caring for historic books.
Contact Us
The Museum Studies Program at the University of Delaware 77 East Main Street | Newark, DE 19711 (302) 831-1251 http://www.udel.edu/museumstudies museumstudies@udel.edu Katherine (Kasey) Grier, Director Tracy Jentzsch, Staff Assistant Betsy Keene, Graduate Assistant Della Keyser, Graduate Assistant
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Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - Spring 2015