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Dear All
I have just had a very interesting conversation with one of our curators regarding items that we have just received. A church collection was taken in some weeks ago and as well as the usual minutes, accounts
etc it includes framed rolls of honour, cradle rolls and photographs. It also includes a brass roll of honour from the Church.
I was enquiring if it would be better for the brass item to go to the museum as this is more an item than an archive. However on discussion the frames rolls of honour and cradle rolls would also be considered
by museums as an item. In fact there was some reticence at my suggestion that I was going to de-frame the items for preservation, storage and handling by the public. The train of thought was that framed in their original frames they are an item that would
have originally been displayed on the wall, by taking them out of the frame and turning them into a one dimensional item it is losing the context.
This prompted a discussion about this area as I struggle to store and produce to the public bulky framed items but can see the value for display purposes of retaining it in its original frame. The curator mentioned
that if he had been offered the rolls of honour and cradle rolls he would have accepted them for the museum collection and he has a substantial collection of these as standalone items already.
I am interested in how other archives deal with these kinds of items, do you de-frame or not and why? Do you have an agreement with your museum to store these kinds of things? Are they ever requested for display
by a local gallery?
My thoughts wondered how we could make this situation a little less grey – although with modern electronic cataloguing systems does it matter who holds it?
I don’t feel comfortable splitting an archive collection even though we will struggle to store the oversize items with our current storage arrangements. There is a thought that I could list all the items in
the archive catalogue, take images and transcribe the information on it and make these available to the public – while passing the originals in the frames to the museum for storage and possible display. What are peoples thoughts on this?
Many thanks in advance
Jo
Jo Robson
Archive Officer
Oldham Local Studies and Archives
Oldham Council
84 Union Street
Oldham
OL1 1DN
0161 770 4654/1887
@OldhamArchives
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