After two years of packing the 45,000 artifacts in the Museum collection and a successful move to the new facility, the staff started the lengthy process of unpacking the thousands of boxes of artifacts.
As a box is opened, the staff member carefully removed bolsters from the box to make sure artifacts contained within do not shift.
Artifacts were visually inspected before being removed from the box to determine whether obvious damage had occurred during the move.
As artifacts were removed from the box, they were placed onto a cart. During this step, the contents of the box were inventoried, confirming that all artifacts listed on the packed inventory were still present.
The new storage facility was planned and organized, generally around the principle of grouping artifacts by type of material, before artifacts arrived. This staff member places unpacked artifacts on shelves and in drawers in designated storage areas.
A tracking sheet was used to record each artifact's storage location. Later these sheets were entered into a database so the information about each artifact can easily be accessed by anyone in the Museum.
After an artifact reached its final storage location, its wrapping was removed and staff visually inspected it a second time.
Larger artifacts that could not fit in cardboard boxes were packed in custom-made wooden crates. Unpacking a large crate was usually a team job. The first step was to remove fastening hardware and safely remove the lid.
With the lids removed, crates were ready to be unpacked.
Here, staff members carefully lift a plaster cast of a French Renaissance windvane figure (1913.10.0001) from its crate.
Artifacts too large for a standard cart were placed on a flatbed cart for easy transportation to their final storage location.
As artifacts were unpacked, boxes and crates were broken down for reuse, storage, or disposal. The growing pile of packing material temporarily stored in the new Museum's Knight Auditorium was nicknamed "Mount Bolster."
