Collections
Good collections management is the unseen effort that enables the public to enjoy the displays and learning programmes which visitors expect of museums today. One of our priorities as a Trust is to ensure the care and management of the collections in our care is up to accepted museum standards and our success in achieving Accreditation this year is a recognition of those efforts.
One of the major aspects of work for the Collections team was the preparation and implementation of a detailed Retrospective Documentation Plan. This plan maps out how we will tackle the process of bringing the documentation of the whole of our extensive collections up to Accreditation standard within 5 years. In total, nearly 170,000 objects have been recorded in this period. Figures are listed in the Documentation Plan page of this report.
Picasso hits the headlines
We have linked the documentation plan to our exhibitions and display programme, so that there will be direct and apparent public benefit of this behind-the-scenes work. Good progress has been made in implementing this plan, with financial assistance from the Designation Challenge Fund for the archaeology and biology collections, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for the works on paper, and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for the W.A. Ismay collection and archive.
We completed the formal loan agreement for the Newburgh Priory Pier Glasses between The Trust and the Wombwell family. The agreement is one of three outstanding loans for artworks that have been allocated to York under the Acceptance in Lieu in situ arrangements whereby the ownership of the work passes to The Trust but the work remains in situ with the previous owners.
Other collections management improvements this year have been the creation of site specific elements for our new emergency plans, the compilation of a Documentation Procedural Manual, Making Collections Make Sense, and the beginning of a programme to create backup copies of all accession registers for the Trust.
Collection Care
Significant improvements have been made this year in storage and conservation across the collections. The Palaeolithic archaeology, medieval ceramic and metalwork collections as well as the Boynton collection of Bronze Age metalwork have all been repacked and relabelled. The storage in the Strong Room was completely re-organised, which proved to be very useful during the installation of the Constantine exhibition. The paper archaeological archive has been re-organised and stored at the Yorkshire Museum store along with the excavation archives to which it relates. The biology collections were moved to improved storage conditions at Yorkshire Museum store and a conservation audit was undertaken by a specialist Natural History conservator who also trained our staff in basic conservation measures.
Additional racking has been installed at the Social History store to accommodate the new archive received from Nestlé. The Print Room/Library at York Art Gallery has been transformed with a major re-organisation. The last of the long term loans at the gallery were returned to their owners and this has enabled a reorganisation of the York Art Gallery store.
Research
The collections across the Trust continue to act as a resource for research and enquiries. As part of an English Heritage funded project, Stuart Harrison, a medieval architectural historian, has been reconstructing the pioneering twelfth century Archbishop Roger’s choir in York Minster from the Yorkshire Museum's collection of architectural fragments. Rebecca Storm has measured over 400 skeletons from St Helen’s on the Walls medieval cemetery looking at the asymmetry of the skeletons. An astronomy project with 3rd year Astrophysics students at the University of York to determine the exact location of John Goodricke’s observing site at the Treasurer’s House.
Portable Antiquities Scheme
The Trust is the lead partner and host for the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) in North Yorkshire and Humberside. The PAS has run monthly finds ID days in Hull and York, and have recorded some 400 finds from major metal detecting rallies in our region at Long Marston and Well. Progress has been made on the cataloguing of the major archive of finds amassed by Jim Halliday, a well known metal detectorist. The finds information recorded by the PAS is publicly available on the scheme’s website www.finds.org.uk.
Iron Age gold coins brought in to the Portable Antiquities Scheme by metal detector users were among treasures that went on show at the Yorkshire Museum.