Past Events

Community Partnership Projects (formerly Angels Projects) are typically arranged in conjunction with our annual meeting. Below are past projects. 

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2019 RE-ORG/C2C Care Webinar and Angels Project Pilot

New London Maritime Society, Connecticut

Forging ahead on a precisely charted course, 22 volunteers brought their creative energy to the 2019 “RE-ORG Angels” project at the Customs House Museum of the New London Maritime Society in New London, Connecticut. Held in conjunction with FAIC’s Connecting to Collections Care (C2C Care) online course, “Planning a RE-ORG Project,” about half of the participants were active online students. As the first RE-ORG activity to be organized in the US, this project added to the list of 144 institutions in more than 30 countries that have accomplished a RE-ORG project to date. Organized and facilitated by Simon Lambert, Rachel Perkins-Arenstein, Lisa Goldberg, and Elizabeth Morse, four teams transformed a storage room in the course of a single day.

Every RE-ORG project involves four phases: getting started, documenting current conditions, defining an action plan, and implementation. The facilitators worked with Susan Tamulevich, Director of the Custom House Museum, to prepare for Phase 4 in the months prior to the onsite project, using the C2C Care webinar as a platform for planning.

Armed with the directive “Don’t let ‘museum-standard’ limit your creativity as long as it’s safe for collections,” a few basic supplies (coroplast, archival boxes, Ethafoam, Tyvek, tissue, and twill tape), and sets of small tools organized at each workstation, the teams removed everything from the storeroom and replaced everything in a new configuration, as well as identified storage solutions for items that would not be placed on shelves. For example, volunteers created a tall wooden box lined with an internal Coroplast egg crate to furnish support for long, thin objects such as walking sticks and umbrellas. An existing, wooden flat file flipped on its side and lined with Coroplast now provides efficient vertical painting storage.

The RE-ORG Method stresses the importance of adaptability and flexibility. A seemingly never-ending stream of textiles emerged as the storage room was emptied – more than could fit in the boxes available, so the textile conservators changed strategies and figured out how to maximize available space. Similarly, when rehousing the rolled paper maps took much longer than expected, more volunteers were re-assigned to help this team. Morse said, “We had some synergy with the map wrapping project…. You think it should be done one way and then useful comments and input improved the process, streamlined it, and allowed us to cross the finish line!”

By the end of the day, teams checked off every item on the task charts. Tamulevich observed, “…what you have accomplished here was unimaginable to me….” She added that she valued the deep level of conservation expertise and care that everyone gave to the Custom House collection. What has changed as a result of the RE-ORG activity? Tamulevich spoke optimistically about making objects discoverable and using them to illustrate the community’s maritime connections. This project’s success honored Tamulevich’s willingness to allow the planning process to unfold as a pilot project on an online platform, and to let this group of volunteers completely re-configure and re-organize her collections storage room.

Interested in RE-ORG?

• ICCROM RE-ORG Resources
• C2C Care Re-ORG Course
  This course is open for self-study indefinitely.

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2018 Angels Project

PRINTING MUSEUM, HOUSTON

Following the AIC Annual Meeting in Houston, a group of volunteers forwent a Sunday swim in the Texas-shaped lazy river at the conference hotel, braved the Houston humidity, and headed to the Printing Museum to participate in an Angels Project. As their mission phrases it, the Printing Museum, Houston, “demonstrates the enduring impact of the printing by exploring the intersections of the history, art, and technology of the craft.” The museum’s collections include historic documents, books, presses, and other printing equipment, as well as studio spaces for printers, an artist-in-residence, and two operational presses within gallery spaces that are used to demonstrate printing techniques for visitors. The museum only recently reopened following a devastating fire in May of 2016. Volunteers had the fantastic opportunity to explore the museum and help with cataloguing, photographing, and condition-checking newspapers with historically significant headlines and an assortment of other printed materials. The items dated from the 1700s to the early 2000s and included local, national, and international printed materials. Staff members at the Printing Museum were well prepared for our visit, and we set up two documentation stations to streamline the cataloguing, photography, and examinations processes. Separately, some volunteers took a look at the two presses used for visitor demonstrations: one a 1999 replica of a Gutenberg press (made by Pratt Wagon Works in Utah), and the other a 19th-century cast iron, Washington Style, Columbian Press. Without conservators on staff, the day presented a great opportunity for the Printing Museum to have discussions about conservation priorities, building and press maintenance, and other topics related to collections care. Overall, the project was a wonderful opportunity to make new acquaintances and gather as conservation professionals to lend a hand to a local Houston gem. 

—Excerpt from AIC News, Vol. 43:4, 8-9, by Riley Cruttenden, ECPN Communications Officer and Angels Project volunteer

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2017 FAIC & AIC Joint Emergency Project

DUSABLE MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

Following the conclusion of the AIC Annual Meeting in Chicago, several AIC volunteers stayed behind for another day to work with the DuSable Museum of African American History. The event, organized by the AIC Emergency Committee with support from FAIC’s National Heritage Responders, provided an opportunity for museum staff to discuss principles of response, conduct a risk assessment, and carry out a wet salvage exercise. The museum is undergoing the process of reevaluating and rewriting their emergency procedures, so they were appreciative of the insights gained during the project. Attendees from the museum included collections staff, security staff, and the museum’s Chief Operations Officer. Fifteen AIC members took part in the training, including several volunteers who are not formally trained in disaster response. The AIC Emergency Committee intends for this program to also serve as an opportunity for AIC members to practice emergency exercises, while bringing their specialized knowledge to the training.

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2016 - NO VOLUNTEER PROJECT

Due to the international location and joint meeting, a volunteer project was not planned in Montreal.

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2009 Angels Project

Sherman Indian Museum

In conjunction with AIC's 37th Annual Meeting, volunteer conservators spent a day working with the collections at the Sherman Indian Museum in Riverside, CA on Tuesday, May 19, 2009. The purpose of the project was to inventory, survey and re-house objects and archival materials from the museum’s collection.

This year's Angels project project was organized by Molly Gleeson and Özge Gençay Üstün, recent graduates of the UCLA/Getty Master’s Program in the Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials, and is supported by generous contributions from Metal Edge; Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Autry National Center; PACCIN - Preparation, Art Handling, Collections Care Information Network; the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program; and Paul Messier of Paul Messier, LLC.

The Sherman Indian Museum is located on the campus of the Sherman Indian High School, which derived from the Perris Indian School, the first off-reservation Indian Boarding School in the state of California. The museum’s collection contains objects representing tribes from all over the United States, as well as school records, photographs and other memorabilia. As a graduate student, Gleeson had the opportunity to meet and work with the curator and only staff member at the Sherman Indian Museum, Lorene Sisquoc. “Visiting the museum and talking with Lori, I realized how important the Sherman Indian Museum is as a historical resource and a cultural center, not only for the school community, but to the greater Native American community and the general public.  Lori has many ideas of how she would like to improve storage of and access to that collection, but very little time, funding, or support to do this work.  The Angels Project presented itself as the perfect opportunity to provide conservation assistance to this collection and to enable some of her ideas.”

See more photos from the 2009 Angels Project on AIC's flickr page>>