Heritage Museum

Purpose: Sustaining Cultural Heritage The Heritage Museum of Northwest Florida has a collection of more than 2,000 items related to the history of the region. They include farm implements, household items, Native American artifacts, machinery, books, and photographs. These items have been donated or collected over the past 30 years with varying degrees of documentation, resulting in an insufficiently organized collection and a shortage of curatorial research. Many items are exhibited without accompanying interpretation. This project will fund the hiring of a temporary collections curator to complete a catalog of the collection, label all items, convert the record-keeping system to an electronic format, establish priorities and procedures for improved conservation methods, and create a registrar's manual to help future volunteers use correct methods. Software has been purchased to facilitate this process, and volunteers have begun transferring accession information from the card system to the database. The goals of the project are to be able to locate any item in the collection upon request, to be able to readily confirm the provenance and background of any item, to ensure the future of this important collection, and to maximize the educational benefits of these items for the museum's future visitors.