Do we say “museums are not for everyone” and leave it at that? Or should we have meetings this Monday morning to figure out how our institutions can address visitors with the same opinion as James Durston, senior Producer for CNN Travel, who wrote “Why I hate museums” last Thursday? I generally avoid reading comments on websites, finding them usually to be full of trolls, drivel, and poor manners. The most volatile comments mostly accused Durston of being culturally ignorant

This was too good not to share. I work at a large NYC art institution (you can figure out which one). We welcome guests from the neighborhood, across the country, and around the world. I was walking through the gallery on Friday when a four-year-old girl decidedly exclaimed: “There is nothing in this museum! Nothing! Boring! Boring! Boring!” Alas. Perhaps she needed to participate in an age-appropriate gallery activity. Maybe she needed a nap. Maybe it wasn’t Disney World. Or

Chester County Historical Society. In addition to Swarthmore College’s Friends Historical Library, Wednesday also took me to the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester, Pennsylvania. This is local history at its best – and very well-supported. CCHS has a complex in West Chester’s downtown. It combines a healthy amount of public programming space with permanent galleries for decorative arts and local history and space for special exhibitions. Silhouette of Ellis Cha

My colleague and friend Rob Waller of Protect Heritage Corp. recently sent me a book he collaborated on in 1996, Developing Staff Resources for Managing Collections. It examines institutional responsibilities to protect its collections through development of staff and how to create staff development plans. I specifically like its approach in analyzing the internal and external clients of institutional collection management staff, the services provided to those clients, and th

Next Sunday, I will be speaking at the American Alliance of Museum’s conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The American Institute for Conservation’s Collection Care Network will be hosting a flash session, facilitating discussions with the audience about three important topics in collection care: raising the visibility of collection care in institutions, creating partnerships with facilities staff to further collection care goals, and guidance for working with consultant conserv

Tyvek pillows with (back to front) Ethafoam crumb, polypropylene bead, and glass sand filling. RL Fifield, 2012. Never use sad, crumpled up pieces of tissue again for object transport! Switch to Tyvek pillows. While this isn’t a new idea, I assembled at least fifty of these in the last couple of years. I work with ethnographic sculpture, much of which has experienced insect damage prior to its collection by museums. They have fragile surfaces of ritually applied materials. Th

Collage of engraved portraits on exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in “A Will of their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic.” I was killing time before my talk for the Washington Conservation Guild on February 7. The old Patent Office serves as the home to two Smithsonian Institution museums, the National Portrait Gallery, and the American Art Museum. The Patent Office building began construction in 1836 and its third floor inter

Look at all those people who came to hear me! Washington Conservation Guild meeting, February 7, 2013. On Thursday, February 7, I was invited to speak to the Washington Conservation Guild about the state of collection care. Regular readers will know that this is a topic about which I’m passionate. Preventive care maintains our tangible heritage. End story. If you wait for damage to occur, the most skilled conservation treatment can never fully restore the break, the crease, t

Who Makes Collections Care Happen? Easy. Technicians dust artwork. But that’s a little simplistic view of both the work of  a valuable, skilled technician, and collections care. Conservators make collections care happen! They study scientific reasons for deterioration and design and perform treatments to stabilize structure, consolidate painted surfaces, and prepare objects for loan and exhibit. They must care for collections! Conservators are certainly part of caring for col

I’m one of the lucky ones. To gain the most entry-level job at most museums, a graduate degree is required. The discipline depends on the work you would like to do. If you want to be a curator in a large urban collection, you probably need a PhD in your specific discipline. You had better be good, in order to get a job. If you want to be a conservator, you have to have significant undergraduate chemistry, studio art, and art history coursework and a pre-program internship bef

Once again Transit Tuesday is busting in on Museum Monday. RL Fifield 2012. The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is located in Strasburg, just outside Lancaster. It’s close to the outlet store schlock on Route 30 east of Lancaster, but once you turn off the main drag, the view gets rural real quick. Strasburg is amazingly preserved, and on the eastern edge of town is a collection of over 100 rail cars. Across the street is the Strasburg Rail Road. We visited Thanksgiving weeke

It’s been a busy week. As the Chair of Alliance for Response NYC, I’ve been busy trying to connect affected institutions with helping hands, information, and people in the government who can answer their questions. Below are some sites and opportunities for more information as we work through recovery, return to business, and begin again the planning and preparedenss phase. Heritage Preservation has a number of emergency resources online available for free download. The Emerg

Transit Tuesday is moving on in on Museum Monday. London Transport Museum. Old Metropolitan Railway Car. Photo: RL Fifield 2010. If I didn’t live in New York City, I would live in London. It feels like home. And for fans of transit, the London Transport Museum is an excellent time. In the city that invented modern urban transit, a plethora of equipment, signage, photos, and groovy wax mannequins in the old flower market building in Covent Garden just has to be good. In the su

I am a museum collection manager with over twenty years working with museum collections. I started cataloging costume objects when I was sixteen during my summer tour guide job at the Carroll County Farm Museum. I recently approached a local history collection (which will remain nameless, for the time being) for a photograph of an object to use in a Powerpoint presentation. I was impressed that they spelled out their collections access policy. It’s great to have a policy, and

Speaking as a museum professional and a living history practitioner, what a great project. Theatrical designer Thomas John Bernard and Curatorial Assistant Clarissa Esguerra work with the collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Photo credit: LACMA. http://www.lacma.org/patterns At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s web page, conservators and curators worked with Thomas John Bernard, a theatrical designer, to create gridded patterns of four eighteenth century m

Lecturing at the Bergen County Historical Society, March 2011. I’m a Collections Manager in a large New York City institution. My first museum job was as a thirteen year old volunteer at a “living history” state park, Heritage Hill, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Living history generally denotes that the park shares its educational mission – to educate visitors about history – via recreation of historical settings. Historical buildings or reproductions thereof are filled with anima

Where there is space, there is dust. RL Fifield dusting. Over dust, visitors to our museum and I connect. Dust is an ongoing challenge for collection care staff. It gets on your cases. It gets on objects on open display, such as the large wooden and stone sculptures in our galleries. Dust, plainly, is us. If we limited visitors to the galleries, we wouldn’t have such a dust problem. Obviously, that’s not a solution for museums. So combine dead skin, fibers from winter coats a

What is that box with all the dials sitting in the corner of the gallery? A hygrothermograph. Photo: Oakton. Chances are, it’s a hygrothermograph. It’s a device that tracks temperature and relative humidity over time. Museum staff use it to understand the environment in a space, and how it is affecting the objects being displayed. So, you ask, why does this matter? Many objects are sensitive to changes in relative humidity. Think of doors that stick in their jambs in the summ

It can be overwhelming. It can hurt your brain. But it can also help you understand your collection’s preservation needs like nothing else. Collections risk assessment. Ready? Collections risk assessment evaluates the impact of different specific risks on a collections unit. It’s a systematic way of generating data to illustrate to your administration, board, and supporters what work you need to do to protect collections. RL Fifield illustration, 2012. FS x LV x P x E = MR. T

A train car to carry molten iron. RL Fifield 2012. I wasn’t sure what to feel about Steelyard Commons. It’s a rather run-of-the mill (pun, ha) shopping center created on lands once occupied by a Cleveland steel mill in 2007. Other steel mills are located nearby. It’s identifying characteristic is the fragments of the ground’s former past, with interpretive signage nearby. So above the Five Guys Burgers & Fries, there is a utilities bridge, that once carried resources over the