24 Jul Learning about the procedures of the NPS Museum Collections handbook, and beginning the Annual Inventory of the collections here at CHAM!!!

Last week was mostly preparation for the Annual Inventory of the collections here at CHAM, this week however we had an opportunity to engage with applied archival and historical work. I worked closely with my supervisor and Cultural Resource Program Manager, Mark Calamia, Rodney Sauter an Interpretive Ranger and with my assistant intern, Juan (in the picture from the last blog entry) on the three different inventories of the overall Annual Inventory of our museum collection at CHAM. We began with the “Controlled Property” inventory which was housed in our vault and began the “Random Objects” list which were found in three separate storage locations one being off-site. The “Random Objects” list took two full days to complete, the following day we began the “Accessions Files” list which was mostly locating the records and paperwork pertaining to each accession in the museum collection, although for some we had to also locate the object. This was a long week and I learned quite a lot about what exactly our collection was comprised as a means to continue the development of the update to the Scope Of Collections Statement here at CHAM. Archiving and Collections Management are key elements of our work, and to be honest I really do enjoy it! That Friday I continued the documentation of non-accessioned items and continued to read about the management of museum collections by the NPS. I also began reading the SOCS of three other memorial parks of the NPS, as a means to understand how they were developed and written in comparison to the 2010 SOCS at CHAM. Onward and upward my people!!!