The Southern California Medical Museum
Curator’s Corner
The curators of the Southern California Medical Museum would like to share some of our solutions for the typical problems affecting small museums in the medical or other field. Like many other museums, we do not have large endowments or huge cash revenues. But we have been able to come up with some lower cost solutions that could benefit other similar institutes. In addition, if you have some helpful hints, please send them to us for inclusion.
SIGNAGE
The small museum does not have the resources to create the expensive lettering on plastic that larger museums have. But an effective fix does exist. We create our signs for displays on a desktop publishing program or page layout program using a simple, set format with easy to read type faces (Times Roman for serif and Helvetica for sans serif) in size 14 pt (or greater for titles.) This is printed out on ultra-white 20 lb. acid free paper. Each sign or label is fixed to acid free foam board with acid free photo adhesive (we use 3M Photo Mount Spray Adhesive.) The label is then carefully cut using a metal straight edge ruler and a sharp X-acto blade. To mount the label in the display cabinet, we first affix positive velcro on the desired site (either by its own sticky backing or a single staple with a staple-gun.) Then the negative velcro is applied to the label to hold it in place on the positive piece. This allows for easy removal of the label when changes are made or a display is replaced. To display signage on eye level, visit your local restaurant supply store. There for a very low cost (about $2 or less) you can get plastic holders, originally designed for holding table special cards, but they work great to hold small signs in an upright and steady position.
RISERS
A low cost solution to giving varied heights to items on display is to use plastic boxes. These come in many clear colors as well as opaque colors. (We use opaque black boxes.) The box can be used complete and upright (for maximum height), without top (lower height), on its side (lower and wider) or just the top alone (lowest.) These boxes come in numerous sizes and can be found online or at places like the Container Store or a plastics store. Most of these boxes are less than $5 depending on the size and dimensions.
MUSEUM RESOURCE BOOKS
Here are a few books and resources to help out small museums. These include supply sources for archival materials.
Archival Sourcebook Gaylord Company 2002 Syracuse, NY
Archival Storage Materials Catalogue Metal Edge, Inc. 2007 Commerce, CA
The Care of Historical Collections by Per E. Guldbeck 1972 American Association for State and Local History Nashville, TN
Exhibits for the Small Musuem, A Handbook by Arminta Neal 1976 American Association for State and Local History Nashville, TN
