Daly Conservation

The symposium today is a bi-annual event, at the Newark campus of the University of Delaware for the Society of Winterthur Fellows (SOWF).   It was a discussion of traveling exhibitions.   There was a lot of talk about why museums make or take traveling exhibitions and some mention of whether museums would continue with expensive exhibitions or if they would look internally to create exhibitions from their own collections.

The speakers were from curatorial, education, registration, and conservation.  I was particularly  interested in the stories from the registrar.  They reminded me a lot of working in museums, traveling crates all over the world to realize that they wouldn’t fit down a hallway, and therefore could not get into the gallery.

I always wonder about these really practical things that are never really taught in school but so vital once you are out working in a museum.  I wish there were more classes about MacGyver style work.   But it might be one of those things that you have to learn on site.

There’s a new exhibit that just opened at the NMNH in Washington, DC.   It studies the bones and forensic files and has possibly the best interactive website I have ever seen.  I am just picturing telling my friends that yes, this is kind of like what I do.

http://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/comic/#