News
Glencoe Museum Receives Conservation Bookshelf
Treasured objects and artifacts held by Glencoe Museum will be preserved for future generations with help from the IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf. Connecting to Collections Bookshelf is a core set of conservation books, DVDs, and online resources donated by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the primary source of federal funding of the nation’s museums and libraries. IMLS and its collaborator, the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), will award a total of 2,000 free sets of the IMLS Bookshelf by the end of 2008.
Check the IMLS website.
“This new resource will help us tremendously with our collection management for years to come,” said Hanns-Peter Nagel, director of the Radford Heritage Foundation and Glencoe Museum. Over the course of its ten year history, Glencoe Museum has amassed a sizable collection of historic artifacts, documents and photographs. As a mainly volunteer-driven effort, however, collection standards and policies have not always been clear and consistent. “We recognize these issues and it will be a major focus in moving forward,” Nagel added.
The Radford Heritage Foundation and Glencoe Museum are among the first to receive this essential set of resources based on an application describing the needs and plans for care of its collections. The IMLS Bookshelf focuses on collections typically found in art or history museums and in libraries' special collections. It addresses such topics as the philosophy and ethics of collecting, collections management and planning, emergency preparedness, and culturally specific conservation issues.
The IMLS Bookshelf is a crucial component of Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action, a conservation initiative that the Institute launched in 2006. IMLS began the initiative in response to a 2005 study by Heritage Preservation documenting the dire state of the nation’s collections. The multi-faceted, multi-year initiative shines a nationwide spotlight on the needs of America’s collections, especially those held by smaller institutions, which often lack the human and financial resources necessary to adequately care for their collections.
