Collections Care Toolkit: A Resource Guide for Volunteer Based Museums

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2022The roles of the volunteers in small museums and all-volunteer organizations are vital to keeping such organizations afloat. Limited resources, lack of funding, and high staff turnover are daily barriers that small organizations face. As someone who has worked and volunteered in collections at small museums, I can attest to the limitations of training volunteers in collections management. Without a better understanding of collections management, volunteers can not properly care for these objects. An all-volunteer organization would need to hire a collections contractor to help with collections management. Due to various constraints, smaller institutions that rely on volunteers face multiple barriers to effectively handle and care for their collections. The purpose of this project was to develop an accessible collections care toolkit/resource guide for volunteers working at small historical and cultural museums. The toolkit would serve as a how-to guide regarding the basic concepts of collections care 101 and provide credible links to free videos, documents, and handbooks for users seeking further information on specific topics such as methods for storing textiles and proper object handling. The final product resulted in a collections care toolkit/resource guide hosted on the Washington Museum Association's website, which can be downloaded in PDF format on mobile and desktop devices. This toolkit allows volunteers without professional collections training to apply best practices and act as stewards of museum objects. The hope is that by furthering their knowledge, volunteers will be inspired to continue their contribution to museum work