• web sites and blogs 
• exhibits - traditional and visible labs
• adult lecture series
• store sales items
• student programs and activities
• educational camps 
• fundraisers

Web Sites

Today most museums have a web site. It is relatively easy to add a page that lists the ten agents of deterioration. Go further, and explain to your public how they can use a knowledge of the agents of deterioration to lessen damage to their own treasures. Remember, those treasures may eventually be donated to your museum. 

Exhibits 

Most conservation exhibits are of short duration or are adjuncts to larger exhibits. Often they do not get advertised or promoted. Instead, one stumbles on them while visiting an institution. I have seen a number of these exhibits over the years, including an excellent exhibit analyzing objects (The Getty) and a front entry exhibit about the damage caused by handling (Minneapolis Museum of Art). How can you bring preservation into each exhibit you present? You could hi-light a conserved object, discussing how it was damaged and then what was done to preserve it. Or you could have mini-exhibits on each agent of deterioration. Some museums have conservators work in front of the public. Our public is fascinated by preservation and conservation.

Adult Lecture Series

If you have an established annual lecture series, consider adding a lecture segment on the business of museums, how we operate and do what we do. Incorporate preservation tidbits in other talks. Remember that your board is part of your public. Fifteen minute educational talks to the board may help them understand the importance of preservation for preserving the museum's greatest asset - its collection.

Museum Gift Shop 

Those who visit your museum do so because they love material culture. Often they have their own collections and yearn to know how to care for them. Give them something to purchase in your museum gift shop. Consider carrying acid-free boxes and tissue paper, reputable "how to care for (a specific material)" books, and special gift sets. For example, a muslin bag and padded hanger might be sold to store wedding gowns and christening gowns. If you don't want to carry the inventory, consider an online gift shop, ordering the supplies if an order comes in for that product. 

Fundraising 

Zoos have been fundraising using an "Adopt-an-Animal" approach for years. Museums haven't embraced the idea, but it might be well worth trying. There are a few institutions that do ask for funds for specific items to be treated each year. Others fundraise for a specific project, such as a mural that needs stabilization or conservation of an area of the collection.

Opening up the invisible part of the museum - the important behind the scenes work of cataloging and caring for the collection - opens up the public's understanding of the costs of doing this work. The more you can make the business of how we do business accessible, the more your donors will understand requests to fund acid-free tissue and boxes. One option is to make behind the scenes tours a perk of membership. Once a year, open up the guts of the museum to members, making sure areas are heavily staffed so there won't be any theft or vandalism.

Student Programs and Activities

The Agents of Deterioration bring physics, chemistry and biology into your museum, even if you are an art or history museum. Integrated pest management and pest biology, humidity and wood swelling, light fading and the energy spectrum, pollution and increased metal corrosion are all ripe for experiments and curricula additions. For example, a discussion of light leads to experiments with energy. There are great tools - UV changing beads, light sensitive papers - to help children understand how light damages collections.  

Create a treasure hunt game for children. Can they find the dataloggers, light monitors and other preservation tools scattered throughout the exhibits?  

Camps  

Students are the future leaders of our world. When they are young, they are malleable. So consider giving them the tools to understand the importance of preservation by having an interesting camp where they learn how to preserve special materials. Sabanci University in Turkey believes strongly that today's children are tomorrow's leaders. Cultural Heritage and Preservation Projects include programs where young children make objects, break them, and then repair them. 

Conclusion 

by Tom Bennett  

Brass H-mount holds artifact.

Museum people don't often talk about making mounts and installing art, but both are important. Well thought out and produced mounts present objects in ways that make the exhibit striking and professional. 

Mount makers aren't exactly curators, not quite conservators; more often we're designers and artists, we are certainly crafts persons. We install the stuff you see in galleries, museums, public spaces, homes and businesses. (Mount making is coming into its own. Two international mount making forums, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast of the United States, were held in the last few years.)

We are gypsies who travel to the art and artifacts, carrying our tools and equipment with us. Since we are often visitors to an institution, our work habits must be neat and considerate, always taking care to protect the objects.  

Our job is to realize the vision and wishes of the exhibit or museum designer in close association with the conservator, curator, registrar or collections manager. The choice of materials is not always ours to make, so we work within parameters given and give our own advice tactfully and graciously.  

When we are being asked to make those choices, we use professional judgment to decide if an object is suitable for display, if its presentation is most effective standing out from a wall, on the deck of a display, or on a riser or pedestal. Conservators are our best friends in exhibits. They are dedicated to understanding the physical nature of objects, how and why they change over time. They are as broad in their range of knowledge as we are in our discipline and they will advise us well.  

There is much for us to consider in any display. Of what material should mounts be made? Brass has great strength and fabricating flexibility, but may not provide enough surface for the object's safety. Plexiglas provides more surface area but can distract the viewer's attention. I've had occasions to use two or three materials to make a good mount. What will best enhance the overall exhibit design? What affect will mount materials have on the object over the long term? Does the object need a padded surface to rest on or need extra security? Will building vibrations or earthquakes be of concern? Time, practice and consulting with others will make judgments less intimidating. Use every resource at your disposal.  

The field is loaded with rules and guidelines designed to protect objects, all with good reason - usually derived from the mistakes of others. Mount making simultaneously demands creativity and a certain amount of rigidity. We balance the visual trickery of theater with the limits of physical science. 

The Environment

Holding the Object

• Making them of a clear material (plexiglass, polyester film (Mylar or Melinex), fishing line in a clear tubing.) Often there is a problem with shine and reflectance.
• Painting them to match the color of the object (use acrylic paints, and take the object out of the mount before painting the mount).
• Choosing material colored to match the object (embroidery floss is a wonderful example of a soft cotton that comes in many colors and can match most objects).
• Making them as small and narrow as possible, without risking that they will cut into the object.

In Conclusion