Preserving the Collection: Disaster Planning, Response & Recovery

In 2010, The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was heavily damaged by a tornado - and then struck by Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy in following years. Since then, they have made slow but steady progress in repairing the historic building and conserving the damaged collection - as well as reinventing the museum for a modern audience. The museum's website features a description of the damage, photos, and a roadmap for recovery, and their YouTube channel features video tours of various parts of the building under construction.   The Barnum Museum: https://barnum-museum.org/visit/museum-recovery/   Renovation Tour, part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSg9uU5CLc   Renovation Tour, part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjmhMympk3U  

  dPlan|ArtsReady is an online tool created wtih cultural institutions in mind. It helps users conduct risk assessments, and create action items and useful tools such as phone trees and cloud storage for critical documents that can be used in an emergency.   https://www.dplan.org/   Video Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSqxpHY476JyV26jLxzOiuvbBd-3yc6j0

Ensuring good security practices is one more way of preventing a (man-made) disaster from befalling your collection. The most daunting part - having a baseline 100% collections inventory - is a good standard practice for collections care, and highly recommended for any disaster mitigation. This webinar presented by Dara Shore and hosted by FAIC Connecting to Collections Care discusses the NPS Museum Collection Security guidelines.   Webinar: https://connectingtocollections.org/security_fandamentals/   Guidelines: https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/mhi/chap14.pdf

Cooler weather - and for some of us, a decrease in visitors and staff around the holidays - can make your building appealing to the wrong kind of visitors: rodents and other pests. Be sure to keep up with IPM and familiarize yourself with the signs of an infestation. NPS Conserve-o-Gram: https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/03-11.pdf Museum Pests Working Group:  museumpests.net