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The Star Spangled Banner and Your Local History Museum |   |
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This article was originally published in The Leelanau Enterprise on July 12, 2001. The Star Spangled Banner and Your Local History Museum Written by Laura J. Quackenbush, Curator Leelanau Historical Museum While we celebrate this 4th of July with parades and picnics and patriotic songs, it is appropriate to remember and admire another institution as American as the ideals of democracy, Mom, cherry pie, and the "Star Spangled Banner" - the nonprofit, community based local history museum. In the United States of America citizens shoulder the responsibilities of providing public services that, for various reasons, are not undertaken by government or business. Instead, Americans band together and pool their resources to provide education and health services, to seek social, economic and political reform, and to provide and foster stewardship for natural and cultural resources. Maria Malaro, who writes about museums and the law, likes to point out the core democratic values inherent in nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits, she says, foster diversity, providing venues for minority voices and new ideas that may well be outside the interests of the majority that govern civil life. Nonprofits function outside the marketplace, setting goals and objectives that are not measured in economic terms. Success, instead, is judged in terms of quality of product or services that benefit the public. Her third point should resonate especially in Leelanau County's communities: "Volunteerism is the heart of the nonprofit, and volunteerism in the true sense is virtue in action. The nonprofit sector provides opportunities for community members to work together for a good cause, and individual growth." Over the past decades, Leelanau County's nonprofit sector has blossomed, evidence of the population's concerns and interests. One of the most important service community-based nonprofits provide Leelanau's residents and visitors is stewardship of cultural resources. In 1957, representatives from the county's eleven townships met in the Old Settler's Chapel on the shores of Glen Lake to seek a way to collect and preserve the county's heritage. The outcome of their initiative was the creation of the Leelanau Historical Society and its museum, the county's oldest nonprofit organization practicing cultural stewardship . Over the years the Empire Area Heritage Group, Grand Traverse Lighthouse Association, and the Omena Historical Society have joined the Leelanau Historical Society in the mission of increasing the awareness of, and preservation of our local heritage. Today local history museums are much more than storehouses for their communities, simply collecting and preserving material culture. To remain vital they respond to the evolving needs and concerns of the communities they serve. In Leelanau County this includes challenges to the preservation of community's rural landscapes and quality of life that are key to our cultural legacy and sense of place. A primary way in which the value of those legacies can be understood is through the collections in the local history museums. Here are gathered and preserved the objects that tell the story of this place. Thus stewardship for the community's important objects remains central to their mission. Today, we refer to an array of practices governing care of museum objects as "collections management." The term includes caring for physical objects. With the goal of long term preservation, the relative humidity and temperature need to be regulated since objects are damaged by constant changes in relative and humidity. Additional measures such as storing objects in acid free enclosures and boxes, providing support for fragile and unstable objects, removing or minimizing inherent vice (high acidity, pests, dirt, etc.) lengthen the life of objects. Collections must be cared for in ways that protect each object from damage caused by light, dirt, and mishandling while in storage and display. Along with the physical care for an object, comes the preservation and documentation of each object's story. Collections management involves an extensive record keeping system. Written records, forms, and databases insure future generations will know where each object came from, who used it, how they used it, in addition to a description of its physical characteristics. Additional records allow museum staff, researchers, donors, and visitors to identify the objects in which they have an interest and find and retrieve them from within the collection. Of what good is keeping and caring for an object if it cannot be used to tell its story? That question is a frequent debate between conservators and museum curators, directors and trustees. With long term preservation in mind, conservators would lock a museum's collection away in a dark deep freeze. Since that is not possible or desirable, each museum's staff determines how the collection will be managed to provide public access and maximize longevity. Rotating objects from storage to exhibit allows objects to "rest' from exposure to light, dust, and environmental pollutants unavoidable in display. Certain types and levels of light are required in exhibit spaces to minimize damage. Exhibiting objects in show cases keeps dust from settling and provides additional security. Controlling access to sensitive materials such as original documents and photographs and rare books, ensures their long use as research materials. Forty four years of collecting have filled the current Leelanau Historical Museum storage areas to capacity. During the past years, improving and expanding the Museum's collections storage and processing space has been of increasing concern to LHS Board of Trustees and the LHM professional and volunteer collections staff. The mandates of good stewardship demand careful planning for the future of the Leelanau Museum's collections. As part of that process, the LHM has tapped the resources available to them through federally funded Institute of Museum and Library Services. Noncompetitive IMLS grants paid for the services of a professional collections manager and collections conservator to visit the museum and examine our collections and collections management practices. In March 1999, Museum Assessments Program for Collections (MAP II) surveyor reviewed collections management practices and outlined a series of recommendations which the staff is implementing. This summer, the LHM received a Conservation Assessment (CAP) grant. Focussing on collections care, a conservator on examined the LHM from stem to stern examining storage and exhibit arrangements. Her report, due in October 2001, is eagerly anticipated. The Leelanau Historical Society and Museum continually seek to be better stewards of Leelanau County's cultural legacy. Happy 4th of July!. Wave the flag this week and watch the fireworks. Later on, visit Leelanau County's local history museums to celebrate the heritage of this place. | |||
