By Rebecca Helgeson, Collections Manager
May 17, 2022
A while back, I described the structural issues we discovered at the Academy building and the object sorting project that is being undertaken as a result of this issue. A lot has happened since then – the creation and unveiling of our new Reading Room on the first floor, changing the second floor into an open plan collections storage and work space – but, although progress had to be paused for these other projects, the sorting project is still ongoing. We have even started working through our photographs and archival materials to make these parts of our collection more accessible as well.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, we discovered that sorting the objects ended up having benefits on top of improved conditions for the preservation of collections. Through this work, we are also finding items listed as “missing”, discovering and clearing up redundancies in our records, and finding duplicate objects that can be culled from the collection. Interestingly, there is a single collection object that embodies all 3 of these benefits. It is object number (OBID) 1992.28.2 – a toy spinning top donated by Mary Dempsey.
On an object record page in Past Perfect, there is a section where you can enter an object’s “status”. This is where collections staff or volunteers can note things like whether an object needs conservation or is on loan. The ideal is for majority of the objects in the collection to have a status of “ok”, but some objects are marked as “missing”.
There are many reasons why an object that exists in the collection might be marked as “missing”. Perhaps the item isn’t labeled or is mislabeled so it was never connected with its record. Or maybe it was accidentally placed in the wrong box, so, when someone went to look for it, they discovered it was not where it should have been. Whatever the reason, this top was listed as missing in Past Perfect, but, through the sorting project, it was found and is now properly labeled, and its location information is up to date so it can be easily found. We have connected dozens of “missing” objects to their records over the course of this project, and we hope to continue this important work going forward.
We have also identified numerous redundancies in our records through this process. Redundancies can occur when an unlabeled object is assigned a found in collection (FIC) number so that it can be tracked until its original OBID is identified. FICs are an important part of collections management, but the goal is to figure out what an item’s correct OBID is so the FIC records can be deleted.
In this case, the redundancy in our records occurred do to a simple clerical error. This top was entered in Past Perfect both under its correct OBID and 9228.2. I believe this second number is how objects from the 80s and 90s were once entered in our database. These entries were updated a few years ago so that everything was entered consistently, but this record must have been missed when this work was done. Now, the two records have been combined. As we identify and correct errors such as these, we gain a more accurate idea of the size and scope of the collections in our care.
Finally, this sorting project has helped us cull the collection of objects that should not be in our care. As you may know, the Framingham History Center has adopted the concept of Active Collections (you can find the Active Collections Manifesto here: https://framinghamhistory.org/collections/manifesto/ ), and part of this philosophy is to deaccession objects that do not serve our mission. The easiest way to do this is for us to identify duplicate items that do not tell stories that are unique from each other and present them to the Collections Committee and then the Board as potential deaccessions.
When this top was found, we were surprised to discover that we had not only identified a “missing” object but that we had 2 of these tops in our collection. After considering the condition, provenance, and stories behind these 2 items, it was decided that this top was to be kept and the other offered for deaccession. The more we remove items from the collection that do not serve our mission, the more able we are to properly care for the ones that do.
It may seem strange to focus on this little top, but, in my opinion, this object is a prime example of why it’s great that we are able to do this project now: we are finding misplaced objects, we are identifying redundancies in our records, and we are discovering duplicate objects we can cull from the collection to make ourselves more efficient. The change that was made because of this one object may be small, but these small changes have and will continue to add up to major improvements in collections care at the Framingham History Center.