As the Discovery Centre is a storage facility, we thought it a good opportunity to offer visitors some insight on preservation issues that occur both in museums and at home. We developed 18 preservation and collection management themed drawers, and interspersed them amongst the curatorial drawers. The collections care drawers have orange fabric backgrounds (see photos) to help differentiate them from the blue fabric backed object drawers.
For collection management, we discuss and demonstrate how to collect the stories behind an object to give that object more context; how to document and photo-document an object; how to label various materials; how to handle and move objects safely; and how we catalogue Powerhouse objects.
For preservation, we discuss why and when materials deteriorate, and recommend which storage materials to use and which are best to avoid. We also discuss whether to surface clean objects or not, and how to go about it.
In regard to environmental conditions, we give practical advice on lighting, humidity control, insect identification (including recognising the damage insects cause), and we discuss the value of an approach called ‘Integrated Pest Management’.
There are also preservation drawers on how to care for object and material types like textiles, books, metals, ceramics, glass and photograph storage. Object support, for storage or display, is also covered.