Will Donzelli is on target with this on Collections Policy... and I will add a few more things to consider also. 1. If you are not a business person find some to collaborate with. Always good to have grant writer as a fried too! Unless you have a funding organization or group you are going to have to support it. I have seem to may people open things with about a business plan or ability to fund it and think that money will just appear. Remember most people on the street probably could care less about what you are displaying and certainly will not throw any money your way. Develop strategic alliances with educational facilities and Hi Tech Businesses in your area. ========================== 2. Hey! You are going to get duplicate material... you can wither take up valuable display space to stash dupes and pay or off site storage... but..... the BEST! is finding a beta site to stash it but... it is on display there.. If it is a cool item like an extra Altair or PDP-8 have a loan agreement.... especially when dealing with schools ... If you give something to a college and the whims of floor space utilization rear their head... the can just send it to state surplus or in some cases I have heard of... throw it away! So to reiterate, Find cool other places to place things on display which can also act as a funnel to lead people to visit you mother load ... and maintain control of material in off site displays ================= 3. From the standpoint of disaster having your collection in diverse physical locations is a consideration. If you have a chance to pick a spot in the nation somewhere ... do a study of the area.. Take time analyze the possibly of earthquakes, flood, fire, theft, tornados, hurricanes etc... get maps study the geography... Think of things like.... if I build a museum in a nice mountain forested area and there is a raging forest fire... what happens? Think of things like ... is this area in a flood plain and the 100 year flood... will it get me? many times these 100 year floods happen sooner than 100 years! Think of things like.... Will the earthquakes throw the artifacts off the shelves? ====================================== I could go on forever... but there are a couple things to consider. Ed Sharpe Archivist for SMECC Message: 10 Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 17:14:00 -0400 From: William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Mulling a museum Message-ID: <CANij+deAMEjFcgZ+ky-bphcA+5RErFpUKeeC1s4o=CKNnTedCA at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 we don't have anything like this in the Indianapolis area. getting the ball rolling? Plan. Plan. Plan some more. Plan for the distant future. Part of this planning involves a Collections Policy. This is a document that defines the collection - what is to be included, and what is to be turned away. It has been said by many folks over the years that artifacts (hardware) are the easiest things to find, and in time, will completely take over any and all space a museum has. A nice, focused Collection Policy THAT IS ADHERED TO will keep things under control, and keep quality high. Yes, quality is better than quantity. I have been part of a decent number of independent little museums over the years (computer and otherwise, but all being tech related), and nearly all of them have let their collections bloat out of control, due to the lack of a Collections Policy. Trust me - you do not want to get in this situation. Think of all the good stuff later on that has to be passed up because there is no room. Think of the infighting and politics when you need to get rid of things. Think of moving the collection with all the excess when you lose your space. Think of what visitors are looking at. -- Will