A Moving Story - The Big Wrap!
If wrapping gifts for Christmas fills you with dread, you may just break into a cold sweat when you see what we are currently faced with!
While the whole team get stuck into the enormous task of making sure our collections are suitably organised and boxed for the upcoming move to our new centres, our conservators are left wondering: “What do we do with all the BIG STUFF!?”
The BIG STUFF is our catch-all term for items that won’t fit into our standard sized archive boxes. We have handy measuring gauges in each strongroom to help with selecting the correct size box and to judge if something is ‘oversized’.
After much deliberation, we decided to wrap our larger volumes and odd-shaped items. This seemed like the best solution for us in terms of cost of materials, preservation of the collection and use of space in the new building. The alternative packaging option was to commission bespoke archive boxes.
The volumes that are going to offsite storage will be wrapped in a double layer of paper to give them the extra protection needed for storage and transport, as they can be requested for delivery to either site. We are using an acid and lignin free ‘frame backing paper’ which is very strong and cuts and folds well. Volumes destined to be housed in our strongrooms will have just a single layer to protect them during the move.
We are also rolling, wrapping and boxing most of our maps and plans that will fit into map boxes; these have previously been stored on shelves. We have already given away some of our small mountain of calico map bags, which we no longer need. If anyone has any suggestions as to what we do with the rest of them, please let us know!
We have already sifted through the contents of our 25 plan chests and removed items (by size - using another handy gauge). These loose plans can now go into new folders and moved to our tailor-made folder shelves in the new strongrooms. This leaves our plan chests to house our larger maps and plans, drawings and prints.
Measuring the extent of our oversized collection has played a crucial part in informing the dimensions of our folder racking in our new strongrooms. This is where all the large volumes, folders and odd shaped objects will be stored. It won’t be too long until all our collection is boxed, wrapped and ready for the removal team to arrive!
On our To Do list, we have:
735 oversized volumes to wrap – 4.1% completed. 30 have been wrapped - only 705 to go!
The contents of 160 plan chest drawers to sort into sizes for folder storage – 100% completed.
495 rolled maps and plans to wrap and put into map boxes – 87.5% completed.
Around 70 odd shaped and framed items – 37% completed.
3500 – 4000 Ordnance Survey maps to be rolled, wrapped and put into map boxes – 89 maps completed, that’s around 2.2%.
By Angela Suegreen, Conservator
