Recently I had the chance to speak with Karen Macke, admin of the new Facebook group Museum Collections Management. I spoke to her during her lunch break at the Museum of the Aleutians in Unalaska, Alaska. She shares her thinking behind founding the group, how the group has helped her and other members, and the importance of connecting with other museum professionals.
MARTIN: Can you introduce yourself, your name, job title, and one or two sentences about what most interests you about collections management?
KAREN: Hi, I'm Karen Macke. I graduated in May 2020 from the University of Toronto with a dual masters in archives and records management and museum studies. I currently work for the Museum of the Aleutians, I’m the collections manager here.
We're based out of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. If you know the geography of Alaska, that little chain of islands that goes off towards Russia, we're in that chain. We're pretty remote. The nearest hospital is about eight hundred miles away by plane or helicopter.
It's a unique situation here, mostly just because we're on the ring of fire. This means we have the threat of volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, just about any natural disaster you could have you can have here.
I think that's what really drew me to collections management, the challenge of figuring it out, figuring out how you can get materials, artifacts, and different objects to last as long as possible. Because, we always talk about best practices, trying to keep things alive for the next five hundred years. I also got drawn into collections management because I really like archives, and in my view, a collections manager is actually really similar to an archivist.
I feel that most people find recordkeeping boring. They don't like to organize and file, things like that. I absolutely love it. So this field gives me that opportunity to do data management, record-keeping, everything like that while working hands-on with artifacts. I also really love to build things, so mount making is one of my favourite things to do.
MARTIN: You recently launched a Facebook group called Museum Collections Management. What was your thinking behind starting this group?
KAREN: I think the idea really came from a Facebook group I was in called the Archivist's Think Tank, I found it in one of my archive classes at U of T. I had a question regarding a deteriorated photograph and got a response. I thought, “wow, that's really cool that someone would be able to tell me that.” Researching would have taken me probably 20 hours to figure out what was going on. I got an answer in five minutes from someone that is an archivist that works with photographs all the time and who knew the solution for my problem.
I posted in that group asking if anybody knew of museum specific groups like the archivists one because when I tried to find them, all I could find was like regional ones that had about one hundred people in them. I heard from a lot of people that said, “you know, why don't we just make one, what a great idea!”
I actually didn’t create the group, the other admin, Austin Justice, runs the group because Alaska is too remote for me to effectively run the day-to-day operations. Austin created the group and he made me an admin so that I could help look over it, as I had the original idea for the group. He helped me really grow the group.
That's what made me really think about starting this group, to start something similar to the archives group, but targeted for museum people.
MARTIN: What do you think are going to be some of the main benefits of a group focusing exclusively on collections management?
KAREN: I think it will have a lot of good benefits, but the big one, is continuing education and having people and resources at your fingertips immediately. We are all on listservs, but Facebook is very convenient. You can add photos easily to Facebook and you can try to figure out a solution for any issue. As we are now in a digital age, resources become more readily available, and it is easy to quickly respond to a Facebook post, more so than an email. So, I think the biggest benefit is definitely just having people all over the world easily connected. I was able to find, a past museum that I worked at called the Seward House Museum. Their collections manager joined the group but we had never met, it was really exciting we got to talk. I was able to help her with one of the questions that she had. I never would have had the chance to speak to this person without the group. I think it just really helps to show the interconnected nature of our field and how easy it is to find people that have had similar issues and how much more immediate your response can be with them.
MARTIN: Have you already learned some new interesting practices that you plan to implement into your own work? Maybe you could provide an example or any fun facts that you've come across from this group?
KAREN: I haven’t had the chance to personally post any questions yet, but lots of other members have already contributed some amazing content to the group. What I think has been really great is one member has created a lot of files that have different articles. These files include resources from the Canadian Conservation Institute, and a YouTube playlist, that has multiple videos about handling, care, or cleaning. When I have an issue in the future, like I recently had to learn how to clean a gut skin parka, a Chigdax, which was very difficult, one of my first steps might be to go look at this YouTube playlist that he put up about cleaning artifacts.
Another thing I have quickly learned from the group is there are a lot more resources out there than you may think.
Perhaps one of the biggest benefits is that we have people from all around the world in this Facebook group, we have members in Israel, and South Africa, to name a few.
This can be very helpful if you have cultural items in your museum from a far-off location. Group members could help answer questions through their own lived experience. For example, my museum recently had an issue with a gut skin parka which the previous conservator had attempted to repair, but the adhesive they used has begun to peel away and be rejected by the gut skin. If we had talked with someone from the local Indigenous group, the Unangax, we could have learned the Indigenous way to repair a suit and that probably would have lasted longer, would have contributed more to the provenance of the item, and probably overall would have been a better fix. Ideally, this group could have the benefit of connecting people near and far. You're always a few clicks away from someone that actually knows what you're talking about and can help you even if you don't know what you're talking about. What I've learned the most from the group is that there's a long line of collections managers out there willing and able to help.
MARTIN: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, Karen. Do you have any final thoughts you would like to share?
KAREN: I want to take the opportunity to encourage people to join, it's open to students and recent graduates, basically anybody that wants to be a part of it. Like I said, everybody has different experiences and knowledge in different places, the more of us there are, the more likely we can help each other figure something out.
On a personal note, this group has really helped me, it is something that has really helped me realize that there are so many other people interested and have a deep love for the field. Like I said, I'm in remote Alaska, before I made the group, I was starting to feel a little bit isolated. Everyone I wanted to call for help was either in Anchorage eight hundred miles away or Seattle. The group has really made me feel closer to collection management professionals and people that know what I'm talking about and I can nerd out with a little bit. I can have a conversation about something that's interesting or constructive conversation where we argue about what something is or isn't, or what might be wrong with it. I think it's been good for my mental health to stay in touch with people that also share the same passion I do.
It's rare that you find someone that's really passionate about our field unless they're in the field. It's really nice to have that social aspect of the group. It has definitely made me feel more connected to Toronto, mostly because a lot of my friends from Toronto have joined the group. It helps me feel a little more connected to them, seeing them commenting and posting on it and stuff felt really nice. I get to learn more this way, see more things, and I think that's great. I am really excited to see where the future takes the group, and I hope it can help in big and small ways.
MARTIN: This has been such an amazing chat, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me. Remember to join the group on Facebook at Museum Collections Management. For soon-to-be MMSt graduates, keep an eye on the group for job opportunities.
 |
| Karen Macke, admin of Museum Collections Management, Collections Manager at Museum of the Aleutians, 2020 MMSt, and MI Graduate. (Photo courtesy of Karen Macke) |
MARTIN: Can you introduce yourself, your name, job title, and one or two sentences about what most interests you about collections management?
KAREN: Hi, I'm Karen Macke. I graduated in May 2020 from the University of Toronto with a dual masters in archives and records management and museum studies. I currently work for the Museum of the Aleutians, I’m the collections manager here.
We're based out of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. If you know the geography of Alaska, that little chain of islands that goes off towards Russia, we're in that chain. We're pretty remote. The nearest hospital is about eight hundred miles away by plane or helicopter.
It's a unique situation here, mostly just because we're on the ring of fire. This means we have the threat of volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, just about any natural disaster you could have you can have here.
I think that's what really drew me to collections management, the challenge of figuring it out, figuring out how you can get materials, artifacts, and different objects to last as long as possible. Because, we always talk about best practices, trying to keep things alive for the next five hundred years. I also got drawn into collections management because I really like archives, and in my view, a collections manager is actually really similar to an archivist.
I feel that most people find recordkeeping boring. They don't like to organize and file, things like that. I absolutely love it. So this field gives me that opportunity to do data management, record-keeping, everything like that while working hands-on with artifacts. I also really love to build things, so mount making is one of my favourite things to do.
 |
| Home Page of Facebook group Museum Collections Management. (Photo courtesy of Martin Bierens) |
MARTIN: You recently launched a Facebook group called Museum Collections Management. What was your thinking behind starting this group?
KAREN: I think the idea really came from a Facebook group I was in called the Archivist's Think Tank, I found it in one of my archive classes at U of T. I had a question regarding a deteriorated photograph and got a response. I thought, “wow, that's really cool that someone would be able to tell me that.” Researching would have taken me probably 20 hours to figure out what was going on. I got an answer in five minutes from someone that is an archivist that works with photographs all the time and who knew the solution for my problem.
I posted in that group asking if anybody knew of museum specific groups like the archivists one because when I tried to find them, all I could find was like regional ones that had about one hundred people in them. I heard from a lot of people that said, “you know, why don't we just make one, what a great idea!”
I actually didn’t create the group, the other admin, Austin Justice, runs the group because Alaska is too remote for me to effectively run the day-to-day operations. Austin created the group and he made me an admin so that I could help look over it, as I had the original idea for the group. He helped me really grow the group.
That's what made me really think about starting this group, to start something similar to the archives group, but targeted for museum people.
MARTIN: What do you think are going to be some of the main benefits of a group focusing exclusively on collections management?
KAREN: I think it will have a lot of good benefits, but the big one, is continuing education and having people and resources at your fingertips immediately. We are all on listservs, but Facebook is very convenient. You can add photos easily to Facebook and you can try to figure out a solution for any issue. As we are now in a digital age, resources become more readily available, and it is easy to quickly respond to a Facebook post, more so than an email. So, I think the biggest benefit is definitely just having people all over the world easily connected. I was able to find, a past museum that I worked at called the Seward House Museum. Their collections manager joined the group but we had never met, it was really exciting we got to talk. I was able to help her with one of the questions that she had. I never would have had the chance to speak to this person without the group. I think it just really helps to show the interconnected nature of our field and how easy it is to find people that have had similar issues and how much more immediate your response can be with them.
MARTIN: Have you already learned some new interesting practices that you plan to implement into your own work? Maybe you could provide an example or any fun facts that you've come across from this group?
KAREN: I haven’t had the chance to personally post any questions yet, but lots of other members have already contributed some amazing content to the group. What I think has been really great is one member has created a lot of files that have different articles. These files include resources from the Canadian Conservation Institute, and a YouTube playlist, that has multiple videos about handling, care, or cleaning. When I have an issue in the future, like I recently had to learn how to clean a gut skin parka, a Chigdax, which was very difficult, one of my first steps might be to go look at this YouTube playlist that he put up about cleaning artifacts.
Another thing I have quickly learned from the group is there are a lot more resources out there than you may think.
Perhaps one of the biggest benefits is that we have people from all around the world in this Facebook group, we have members in Israel, and South Africa, to name a few.
This can be very helpful if you have cultural items in your museum from a far-off location. Group members could help answer questions through their own lived experience. For example, my museum recently had an issue with a gut skin parka which the previous conservator had attempted to repair, but the adhesive they used has begun to peel away and be rejected by the gut skin. If we had talked with someone from the local Indigenous group, the Unangax, we could have learned the Indigenous way to repair a suit and that probably would have lasted longer, would have contributed more to the provenance of the item, and probably overall would have been a better fix. Ideally, this group could have the benefit of connecting people near and far. You're always a few clicks away from someone that actually knows what you're talking about and can help you even if you don't know what you're talking about. What I've learned the most from the group is that there's a long line of collections managers out there willing and able to help.
 |
| Karen photographing the Chigax (gut-skin) Parka. (Photo courtesy of Karen Macke) |
MARTIN: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, Karen. Do you have any final thoughts you would like to share?
KAREN: I want to take the opportunity to encourage people to join, it's open to students and recent graduates, basically anybody that wants to be a part of it. Like I said, everybody has different experiences and knowledge in different places, the more of us there are, the more likely we can help each other figure something out.
On a personal note, this group has really helped me, it is something that has really helped me realize that there are so many other people interested and have a deep love for the field. Like I said, I'm in remote Alaska, before I made the group, I was starting to feel a little bit isolated. Everyone I wanted to call for help was either in Anchorage eight hundred miles away or Seattle. The group has really made me feel closer to collection management professionals and people that know what I'm talking about and I can nerd out with a little bit. I can have a conversation about something that's interesting or constructive conversation where we argue about what something is or isn't, or what might be wrong with it. I think it's been good for my mental health to stay in touch with people that also share the same passion I do.
It's rare that you find someone that's really passionate about our field unless they're in the field. It's really nice to have that social aspect of the group. It has definitely made me feel more connected to Toronto, mostly because a lot of my friends from Toronto have joined the group. It helps me feel a little more connected to them, seeing them commenting and posting on it and stuff felt really nice. I get to learn more this way, see more things, and I think that's great. I am really excited to see where the future takes the group, and I hope it can help in big and small ways.
MARTIN: This has been such an amazing chat, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me. Remember to join the group on Facebook at Museum Collections Management. For soon-to-be MMSt graduates, keep an eye on the group for job opportunities.
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