This talk, presented by Shabnam Honarbakhsh,\u00a0continued with\u00a0the theme of the two previous talks\u00a0of museums increasing the accessibility of their collections and collaborating with indigenous or source communities.<\/p>\n
Ms. Honarbakhsh began by\u00a0describing the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology (UBCMOA) to the audience. The UBCMOA\u00a0is located in Vancouver,\u00a0B.C. and is\u00a0composed of 37,000 objects from diverse cultures. Her talk\u00a0centered\u00a0on the museum’s “Renewal Project- A Partnership of Peoples,” a building renovation project that increased the size of gallery, storage,\u00a0laboratory, and research spaces with the goal of making the collections more accessible and supporting community activities.\u00a0At the same time, the “Collections Research Enhancement Project” was also implemented, wherein objects went through a several step process of being\u00a0surveyed, digitized, mounted, packed, moved, and installed.\u00a0Objects were tracked through the entire process using a bar code system and Ms. Honarbakhsh mentioned that the only time the collections were not accessible was during the\u00a0packing\/moving phase. She briefly discussed\u00a0how the objects progressed through the\u00a0various steps,\u00a0noting that\u00a0object mounts were designed with source community involvement, but the\u00a0process is also explained quite well on the museum’s website at http:\/\/www.moa.ubc.ca\/crep\/index.html<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0The Renewal Project and Collections Enhancement Project were immense undertakings but Ms. Honarbakhsh reiterated the importance of the collections remaining accessible as much as possible. In further reference to the collection’s accessibility, she\u00a0directed the audience to\u00a0MOACAT, online access of the collections\u00a0at\u00a0http:\/\/collection-online.moa.ubc.ca<\/a>,\u00a0and the Reciprocal Research Network (RRN), a collaborative\u00a0tool providing online access to Northwest Coast items, at http:\/\/www.rrnpilot.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n To illustrate the UBCMOA’s work with\u00a0indigenous or source communities, Ms. Honarbakhsh discussed a consultation with a community of Northwest\u00a0Coast basket makers and the\u00a0ritual bathing\u00a0of\u00a0a metal sculpture of Vishnu\u00a0for a Hindu ceremony. The collaborations and subsequent access to the\u00a0objects\u00a0were\u00a0viewed\u00a0essential\u00a0in building relationships with\u00a0the respective communities and\u00a0as a way for the source communities to remain connected with their culture. In both\u00a0cases, Ms. Honarbakhsh brought up the topics of acceptable risk and allowable damage while also noting the importance of the communities being able to handle the\u00a0objects and perform\u00a0ceremonies considered vital to the object’s well-being.\u00a0Learning about the UBCMOA’s\u00a0continuous\u00a0efforts of making their collections more accessible\u00a0and\u00a0collaborating with various communities was quite inspiring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This talk, presented by Shabnam Honarbakhsh,\u00a0continued with\u00a0the theme of the two previous talks\u00a0of museums increasing the accessibility of their collections and collaborating with indigenous or source communities. Ms. Honarbakhsh began by\u00a0describing the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology (UBCMOA) to the audience. The UBCMOA\u00a0is located in Vancouver,\u00a0B.C. and is\u00a0composed of 37,000 objects from diverse … Continue reading “39th Annual Meeting- Objects Morning Session, June 2, “When You Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk: Collections Access at the UBC Museum of Anthropology During the Renewal Project,” by Shabnam Honarbakhsh et al.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,32,16],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-objects","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-39th-annual-meeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}