Conservation Bookshelf

State Museum Is Able To Provide Assistance To Organizations Statewide Through Conservation Bookshelf

A resource of conservation books and online sites has been given to the Tennessee State Museum (TSM) to be made available for loan to small museums and historic organizations through the TSM’s field service lending library.

The resource, entitled Connecting to Collections Bookshelf, was developed by the national Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). It will offer valuable resources to small agencies to allow them to better care for their collections.

“This is an invaluable resource which the State Museum can now provide to other museums in Tennessee,” according to Lois Riggins-Ezzell, TSM Executive Director. “We are pleased to work with IMLS on this very important initiative.”

“When IMLS launched this program to improve the dire state of our nation’s collections,
we understood that the materials gathered for the Bookshelf would serve as important tools for museums, libraries, and archives nationwide,” said Anne-Imelda Radice, Director of IMLS. “We were both pleased and encouraged by the overwhelming interest of institutions prepared to answer the call to action, and we know that with their dedication, artifacts from our shared history will be preserved for future generations.”

The IMLS Bookshelf is a crucial component of Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action, a conservation initiative that the Institute launched in 2006. IMLS began the initiative in response to a 2005 study it released in partnership with Heritage Preservation, A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s Collections.

Organizations interested in utilizing the resources provided by the State Museum through the IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf initiative, should contact Myers Brown, TSM Curator of Extension Services at 615-253-0123 or myers.brown@tn.gov.

Posted Sept. 16, 2009