Reposted from NSCC

NORTHERN STATES CONSERVATION CENTER
COLLECTIONS CARETAKER E-NEWSLETTER

INVENTORIES
By Peggy Schaller

Who will do the Inventory?

Only those persons authorized to be in the collection areas should be in charge of doing a Collection Inventory. All helpers during this process must be trusted Collection Staff, another staff member or background checked volunteers. All volunteers must be paired with a staff member and should never be allowed to work in the collection unaccompanied.

Collection Inventories, at their most efficient, are done with teams of two–one person to handle and describe, the other to record the information on the Inventory sheet. One member of this team should be a collection staff member, the other may be a volunteer or other staff member.

Before beginning an inventory, each person involved should go through a short training session on proper handling of collections and how to describe artifacts. Remember, the descriptions required during an inventory are NOT cataloging descriptions, but short, concise descriptions that will allow you to tell one artifact from others of a similar nature.

So how do you go about doing an inventory?

To avoid having your inventory turn into an exercise in frustration, you must have a systematic plan. Do not hop from one shelf to another, or one room or another, you will tend to forget where you have been and will surely miss something. Do one room or section of the museum at a time. Choose a starting point within that room or section and proceed in a logical manner one shelf or case at a time. Always finish each section/shelf/cabinet/drawer before moving on to the next.

Peggy Schaller became Publications Manager at Northern States Conservation Center in 2012; Certificate Program Coordinator in early 2013; and Newsletter Editor for the Collection Caretaker e-newsletter in the fall of 2013. In 2014 she was asked to become the course monitor for all the online courses offered by Museum Classes Online and has been known to lurk in the background of various class chats. She has been an instructor for Museums Classes Online since 2004 teaching collection management courses. 

Ms. Schaller founded Collections Research for Museums in 1991 to provide cataloging, collection-management training and services. She has worked with a large variety of museums and collections for more than 30 years. She provides workshops and project services to museums and historical societies all across the country. The mission of Collections Research for Museums is to inspire museums to improve their professional standards, collections stewardship and service to their constituency through training in, and assistance with, documenting, preserving, protecting and managing their collections. For more information visit her web site Collections Research for Museums

To learn more about how to prepare for and complete a collection inventory join Peggy for MS218 Collections Inventories beginning November 4, 2025.

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