We continue on with our series this week, about what goes on behind the scenes at the Timmins Museum.
Most of its collection is stored in a large room. Director-curator Karen Bachmann says that because you’re preserving these old items, it’s important how you store them.
“You have to sort of store your metals together, store your woods together, and you have to climate control the area,” she tells us. “So you need to keep the humidity and the temperatures at a very constant rate, so that you’re not shocking any of the pieces.”
The standard used is 21°C to 23°C and 39% to 45% humidity.
“You’ll note that sometimes you go into your basement or you go into an antic somewhere and your smell the pieces. Well, we make sure that there’s no smells in our site, because that means that you have some issues and you have some problems.”
Thanks again to Karen Bachmann for invaluable help towards our weekly local history feature.
