This page contains easily accessible resources about the storage, maintenance, and display of collections that may be in your organization’s possession. It attempts to cover a wide range of potential questions from general best practices to more specific questions.

  • National Park Service Museum Handbook
    • This Handbook is, “a reference guide on how to manage, preserve, document, access and use museum collections.”
    • It is divided up into 3 sections: museum collections, museum records, and museum collections use.
    • The PDFs range from 500-1500 pages. For easiest navigation after opening the PDF version of one of the 3 sections listed above, find what you are looking for in the table of contents and follow one of these steps:
      • Hold “control” or “command” key while clicking “F”. Type in the phrase from the document’s table of contents that interests you into the search box that pops open.
      • OR, click and drag the side bar to scroll to the page you’ve identified in the table of contents.
  • Numbering – Northern States Conservation Center
    • This websites presents important questions to consider when labeling artifacts.
    • It provides very detailed information on multiple approaches to and tools for labeling artifacts with accession numbers.
    • The broader website has a strong emphasis on collections care and offers suggestions for physical tools and resources including specialized classes, links to other websites, books and pamphlets.
  • Introduction to museum collections documentation standards
    • This video provides a brief, broad overview about questions of “why” and “how” surrounding the documentation of artifacts.
    • Time: 5:21 
  • Agents of Deterioration – Canadian Conservation Institute
    • This website has a detailed overviews of 10 agents of deterioration:
      • Physical Forces, Thieves and Vandals, Fire, Water, Pests, Pollutants, Incorrect Temperature, Incorrect Relative Humidity, Dissociation
    • The descriptions include agents origins, effects, control, and examples (vignettes).
    • The Smithsonian National Postal Museum refers to this website.
  • Metadata for Data Management: A Tutorial – University of North Carolina
    • This is the University of North Carolina’s overview of the concept of metadata.
    • It includes a definition, why it’s necessary, basic elements, standards, schema, and controlled vocabularies.
    • While this resource provides an effective overview of metadata, conversations about metadata are extensive, complex, and often are unique to a collection. See the Glossary page for a definition of metadata.