Storage for Infinity runs four weeks. To reserve a spot in the course, please pay at http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html If you have trouble please contact Helen Alten at helen@collectioncare.org

Student Comments from MS201: Storage for Infinity: An Overview of Museum Storage Principles:
My first online class. I plan to do more.

I am so glad that you offered this course. I found it very beneficial.

The most valuable part of the class will be the reference book I compiled with all the lectures, forums, assignments, additional readings, etc. This class contained a staggering amount of information … Something like this is much more accessible, no travel expenses or 'lost' work time.

The layout of the web site made perfect sense to me. The flow of it was easy to follow and it was nice to be able to see what things had transpired/been posted.

You seem very approachable and knowledgeable, Helen. This was a good opportunity for meeting new colleagues and networking.

You could not have decided to offer a course any more relevant to the precise issues that our institution is currently dealing with. Tons of detailed info. and a lot of practical help that will actually be useful in daily operations.

This was my first online class and I believe that it was quite a success thanks to the organization that was provided by yourselves. I did not know what to expect but both of you have surely set a very high standard of excellence in online courses.

The Instructor:

Lori Benson is an independent museum professional based in Maine. Ms. Benson has a B.A. in biology and a Masters of Library and Informational Science specializing in rare books and archives. She started working at the Minnesota Historical Society in 1990, finishing a grant funded position as the Preservation Outreach Representative. After a series of project positions at the Historical Society, including Assistant Moving Coordinator, she was hired by the Science Museum of Minnesota as their first Collections Manager in 1994. She was Project Director in the Research and Collections Division for the new facility planning and move. The project was published as Moving the Mountain, the Science Museum of Minnesota Guide to Moving Collections. In addition to her position at the Science Museum, Ms. Benson was adjunct faculty at Dominican University/College of St. Catherine Department of Library Science teaching Preservation and Conservation of Library Materials and Archives Administration in 2000-2001. In 2003, she was hired by Texas Natural Science Center, University of Texas at Austin (formerly Texas Memorial Museum) to de-accession their entire cultural collection. She continues to be a University of Texas Affiliate. She has taught museum studies to undergraduates and given many talks and lectures on preservation, deaccessioning, project planning and moving. She is a member of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections and the Registrars' Committee of the American Association of Museums. In her second life, she teaches handweaving.