Done!

It is done.

The collections move, that is. We completed the move between March 21 and March 25th. It took maybe 3 days all told. I didn't take many photos; I was too busy lifting lots and lots of boxes. But here's how it went down:

First, we identified which boxes we were going to pack. Then we checked them off of the master box list and loaded them into the van.

Then I drove very carefully to the new location, backing up to the museum loading dock. Believe you me, I got pretty darn good at backing up the full sized van we used. We then unloaded the boxes onto tables in the workroom. We would do a couple of loads of boxes before the tables were full and ready for the next step.

From the tables, the boxes were transferred to shelves in the compactor unit, based on what they contained. Both the master box list and the packing list on the outside of each box indicated where the box should go. As we placed each box on a shelf, we marked the shelf on the master box list. And pretty soon, we had moved a lot of boxes.

There were a few objects which were too large to pack in boxes. These objects were moved individually and placed on shelves - no need to unpack what hasn't been packed!

And, finally, after all the boxes that could go in the compactors were put in the compactors, we moved the oversized boxes into the storage room, where they are still hanging out today.

So far, nothing has been unpacked. There are four reasons for this: 1) after the move was completed, I hied it out of here for an extended weekend and some rest, 2) I've had to unpack all the supplies, files, and miscellany from the old office and workspace into the new office and workspace, 3) we're going to need to cut many many shelf liners for some of the objects to rest on (the liners provide a surface with more friction than the metal shelves), and, most importantly, 4) the objects in the boxes are now in a much different environment than they have been for the past decade or more and need time to adjust to their surrounding. The cardboard box provides a bit of a buffer to the environmental change, allowing a slower adjustment rather than shock treatment. Think of the difference between easing yourself into a cool swimming pool and diving in.

But we'll be unpacking soon enough. As soon as the chaos in the office is cleared up...

It's the Final Countdown!

Well, less space travel, more short distance travel in a minivan.

But yes! It is the final countdown to moving here in the collections department. Everything that can be packed is packed, with the exception of my desk, which I plan to deal with at the exact last minute. But the rest of the office is packed:



The storage rooms are all set to go. The interns finished packing on the very last day of their internships. Perfect timing!
Native American room:

World room:


This week I've been getting the new space ready for the move, unpacking the last of the lithics that we moved last month, and doing the paperwork to make sure everything is cleanly and clearly documented for the move. Today I plan to do some more data entry/paperwork and vacuum the tracks of the compactor storage (a surprising amount of debris accumulates in those!). And I plan to make triply sure that we are ready to move come Moving Day. Truly, we're in the final countdown.

Packing the baskets

Now that we're mostly done packing the World room, we've moved on to the Native American collection. This means that we are packing many, many baskets. I thought I would give you a run down on the packing process.

The first thing to do is assemble a box, choosing the large or small size of box depending on what you're packing. Then find the next box number (we're up to box 225) and write it on the box in three place and on the packing list. Then, to be brief, put some stuff in the box. Make sure the stuff isn't going to shift when moved, and isn't being crushed. This usually results in a box looking like this:

or this:

Those objects are being surrounded by packing foam with a buffer layer of either tyvek or archival tissue paper. This method of packing ensures that objects are safe against the box tilting and minor vibration. What it does not ensure against is the box falling or being placed upside down. We will be relying on constant vigilance to ensure that nothing ends up upside down.

Each object in the box is listed on the packing list. The packing list is then entered into a master spreadsheet and each object's temporary location is updated in the PastPerfect database (ie "Object packed in Box 215 for the move to Dean Hall"). Once this step is complete and no errors have been found, the boxes are closed, the packing list is slipped into an adhesive envelope and stuck to the box where it will stay until the box is unpacked sometime this spring. So the final box looks like Box 191 in this photo.


And after that... the boxes are stacked in corners and shelving columns until moving day! And moving day is coming up fast. Two weeks from today!

Sure signs of spring

Spring is springing. There are signs of it all around. The birds are singing, the snow is melting on the hills, and flowers are poking their heads out of the ground (or the landscaping crew has started their work, anyway).

The packing is going well! We're just over 2 weeks out from the move, so this is the final push. Yesterday morning, intern Kim and I tackled packing the large New Guinea shields. We secured three shields at a time to cardboard and placed them in mattress boxes. Here's Kim lining the bottom of the boxes with foam, and a rare sighting of the collections manager in the wild (that's me with my back turned):

We have the world collections room almost entirely packed at this point, except for some very large pieces and some masks which are being researched by the curation and collections management course. We've taken out the shelves and are storing the boxes in the resulting spaces.

A lot more work needs to be done in the Native American collections room. The objects there are generally less complex, and the interns and I have a lot more practice, so I'm confident that we can get this done in the next two weeks. We've a running start, having packed the lithics, and now have the beading and much of the southwestern pottery packed.

I've been working toward this move for so long, it's amazing to think it's almost here! We've even started unpacking some of the lithics into the new Dean Hall space, which is very very exciting. We unpacked 23 boxes yesterday. That was especially good, since we need those boxes back here to pack more!

And, by the by, this is the 100th post! Confetti! Streamers! Balloons! Cake! Thanks for reading everyone!

Packing Update 2/13/2009

Wow! We're already halfway through the month of February. That puts us about 5 weeks out from the collections move. That's pretty wild. Thankfully, the intrepid interns are making excellent progress in packing. Just look at all that empty shelf space:

And the boxes are really beginning to pile up.


I would say that this room is about 2/5 to 1/2 packed. The other room has only had its lithics packed. But, as usual, I think we're making pretty good progress and will be on schedule for the move. Fingers crossed!

Lithics Move Complete!

At 10 am Saturday I met three brave interns in my office. We were about to embark on an epic journey: moving the lithics collection. For our purpose, we include in lithics the chipped stone (arrowheads, scrapers, and flakes), ground stone (manos, metates, pestles) and natural history pieces (selected fossils and geological specimens). All totaled, we had about 7000 pieces of rock to move.

And we did it in two and a half hours.

The move went very smoothly and now the compactor storage has something in it.


Most of the 7000 pieces were in the form of very small and relatively light chipped stone. Despite the small size of each piece, all 7000 take up a goodly amount of space.


The most difficult pieces to move were the very large metates. In particular the piece in the bottom left of the photo below - it took three of us to lift it 5 inches onto the flat dolly. I am not sure that it will be moving again anytime soon. Most of the rest of the material we moved will be unpacked into drawers in the compactor across the aisle from them.


And yesterday the freezer for the isolation room was delivered! It's very large and has hanging baskets just inside the top. It's also lockable to prevent small children from crawling in... or maybe for security purposes.


We're making progress!

Packing Update 1/30/2009

We're shifting into full gear here at the Collections Department as we finish up various projects and move into packing full time. My dedicated interns have been hard at work. They're finishing up the photography of the collection (so we have a visual record of our objects):

You can see our high tech photo background above. Another intern is working on creating surfaces so we can move delicate objects like this Bear mask safely.

The cedar bark used for the mane is extremely fragile and small losses occur whenever it is picked up. The board minimizes the need to handle the mask directly and keeps any lost bark with the mask. Other masks have many fragile parts which need to be stabilized as much as possible (so the vibrations during movement don't cause damage):

And in the midst of this, we're still packing. And we have the gaps in the storage to prove it!

That's the former home of about 6000 pieces of chipped stone. Now all tidily shrink wrapped and ready to head over to Dean Hall. And our box stack keeps growing and growing. (This is one of three box stacks - don't let it deceive you.)

Packing update 1/23/2009

What a week! The United States inaugurated a new President and we packed over 7000 objects.

Okay. They were chipped stone artifacts (projectile points, scrapers, flakes) and we're not exactly done packing yet.

In order to make the move easier on all, we'll be transporting the lithics in the drawers they are in now. Some of my intrepid interns took on the task of counting all the lithics, so that there is a current account of how many pieces are in each drawer. We'll wrap the drawers in shrink wrap to prevent any stray lithics from falling out in transport, and call it good.

We have, so far, 18 boxes (real cardboard boxes) packed with larger, heavier groundstone lithics. We're running out of places to squirrel them away, so we're beginning to stack them.


But my view has been less exciting:

I'm making sure that all the information we write on the packing sheets is entered into the database, and then the object locations are updated in the database, so that we have an accurate accounting of all of our objects, even as they are packed in boxes.

It's a pretty good running start, but we've got a lot of work to do in the weeks ahead of us.

Packing Rocks!

I will never get past that pun. Anything to do with lithics will probably be accompanied by a terrible pun. I apologize.

We've packed seven boxes so far, 83 objects. It's a start on this collection of 9000+. Six of those boxes (51 objects) are lithics, primarily groundstone tools. Borrowing a method from the National Museum of the American Indian Move Manual (which the good folks at NMAI were willing to send me), I have been packing lithics with the wave method.

This method stops the lithics from rolling against each other during moving, and also immobilizes them without causing crushing. It's good for very stable objects like these pestles.

After a box is full, and with one layer only seeing as lithics can be quite heavy, it is taped shut and the packing list is attached. This way we can see at a glance how many objects are in the box and where it should go. The blank part of the form at the bottom will be filled out as the box is unpacked in the new space.

But in the meantime, the boxes are in temporary storage in the collections room. We'll be doing a test move of the lithics (as they are more stable in changing temperatures) in a month or so to work the bugs out of the move system prior to the full move over spring break. So until then, I'll be packing rocks!

Winter Wonderland

I took this photo on December 19th:


I could barely step outside without breaking into Winter Wonderland. There was a heavy frost on all the trees and the snow literally sparkled. It's not quite as magical now, but there has been snow over the holiday break. In fact, I just got back from a few days break for the holiday. All the students are still away, but I found that a mysterious visitor had left gifts for me while I was gone.



200+ cardboard boxes and 4 rolls of packing foam! I hope I ordered enough.... We have about 3000 objects to pack if you don't count the chipped stone (which should be okay moving in the drawers it currently lives in). Fingers crossed and away we go!