Thursday, August 19, 2010 A team from the University of Iowa and the State Historical Society of Iowa spent two days early this week assisting Colfax Historical Society members with evacuating collections from their flood-damaged museum. The museum was in the middle of a new building project next door to the current museum when theContinue reading “Colfax flood”
Category Archives: Flood Recovery
Disaster Response Drill
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Today we put into practice everything that we had learned over the five days. When students came to class they learned that there had been a “disaster.” They had to work in teams to recover the water and mud covered CDs, photographs, and books. They even had to deal with theContinue reading “Disaster Response Drill”
Banner Repaired
Thursday, April 15, 2010 This banner from the African American Museum was signed by Jesse Jackson. The signature and surrounding illustration were sprayed with some sort of fixative which didn’t end up being very sound. The large part of the banner was fine but the areas with the fixative were detached and curling up away fromContinue reading “Banner Repaired”
Moving On!
Thursday, March 4, 2010 The long awaited day arrived at last. We moved out of our “dirty room” at Oakdale Hall, took down our sign, and turned in our keys! Over 18 months ago in the midst of finding space for faculty and students, University of Iowa officials took time to find us a roomContinue reading “Moving On!”
Banner Solution
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 For months we’ve looked at the Jesse Jackson banner trying to figure out what to do with it. It was obvious from inspecting the banner that part of the damage was from folding the banner and not from the flood. Once repaired or at least stablized we didn’t want to foldContinue reading “Banner Solution”
Cleaning Busts
Thursday, February 11, 2010 One project that Kallie is working on is cleaning a collection of busts. After Caitlin tested a couple different treatment methods she settled on using a mixture of water and photo flo roughly a 4:1 ratio. Kallie has been using swabs and cotton pads to remove the mud covering the busts.Continue reading “Cleaning Busts”
Two Vernons and a Typewriter
Monday, January 4, 2010 One of our quandaries was how to clean Vernon Smith’s typewriter, an important artifact from the African American Museum. We found our answer when we contacted Vernon Steve at Steve’s Business Machines (formerly Steve’s Typewriter) in Iowa City. Vern cleaned and repaired the typewriter but did not repaint it. The typewriterContinue reading “Two Vernons and a Typewriter”
Flood-Damaged Phonograph Records Sent Home
Friday, December 18, 2009 A much awaited event finally arrived. We returned close to 1,500 sound recordings to David Muhlena, Library Director for the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids. Cleaning the records was very labor intensive. We began our work in July 2008, working in the Paper Lab cleaning offContinue reading “Flood-Damaged Phonograph Records Sent Home”
Endless Possibilities Grand Opening
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Last night I attended a reception for the grand opening of the African American Museum of Iowa’s permanent exhibit “Endless Possibilities” which traces the journey of Iowa’s African Americans. This event was also a farewell to curator Susan Kuecker who is moving to Pittsburgh. Susan and I have crossed paths manyContinue reading “Endless Possibilities Grand Opening”
Czech Pipe
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 This carved wooden pipe from the Czech Slovak Museum was covered in mud and dust. Since it has so many small crevices it was very hard to clean. I used dampened swabs to remove the dirt. It is in three pieces and combined it took 6 hours to clean. Below isContinue reading “Czech Pipe”