By: Kara West

The need for collections care throughout the United States has been long recognized and is well documented. Those of us working in museums and libraries know that many of the challenges are deeply intertwined - lack of public awareness, lack of funds, lack of expertise, and lack of staff time.  In the last five years, the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has pledged to aid libraries and museums in their efforts to provide the best possible care for their collections with the Connecting to Collections initiative. Funded by the IMLS, California has recently developed a free collections stewardship toolkit and distributed over 2,000 hard copies to museums, libraries, and archives in the state. The toolkit is now available online for anyone to access. The toolkit includes:

Collection Stewardship Guide for Trustees. This guide outlines some of the free or inexpensive steps libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies can take to use collections to raise funds and attract audiences.

Capitalize on Collections Care. This publication is an excellent resource that outlines successful approaches to collections-based fund raising and audience development.

Staff Guide to Free Preservation/Conservation Information and Training. This publication shares just some of the numerous free resources available to help staff increase their knowledge, plan for disasters, protect collections, and raise funds for preservation projects to enhance collection care.

These resources are all available online at www.calpreservation.org/toolkit. Joining together to create a culture of collection stewardship helps all of us do our work with greater pride, satisfaction, and success. If you have any questions about the toolkit, please email info@calpreservation.org.

About Californians Connecting to Collections (C3): C3 is an IMLS funded project to help museums, libraries, and archives promote awareness of collection care and raise funds to preserve California’s heritage collections. In addition to the Collection Stewardship Toolkit, the C3 project is offering a 24/7 toll-free collection emergency hotline (888.905.7737), as well as workshops on writing disaster plans, testing disaster plans and exploring mutual aid networks, and preservation project creation and funding.

Kara West
Steering Committee Member, C3 and
Assistant Director for Field Services
Balboa Art Conservation Center (BACC)
BACC website:  www.bacc.org