Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.
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Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.
Conservation departments
The collection services and logistics department, part of the collections management division, consists of three sections:
The handling and transport technicians work with their colleagues throughout National Museums Liverpool assisting with the safe wrapping, packing and transportation of a variety of objects and works of art. The team are responsible for the safe 'installation' and 'de-installation' of gallery displays and contribute to the varied exhibition programme and capital projects in our venues. The team also assist in the preparation of the many loans that National Museums Liverpool undertakes to other institutions and organisations throughout the UK and overseas.
National Museums Liverpool developed and use a specialised vehicle to ensure the careful and safe transportation of the objects and works of art on all journeys. The handling and transport technicians are skilled at handling, especially when caring for the more demanding items, endeavouring to ensure compliance with all relevant legislation and guidelines for safe movement.
You can see some examples of the wide variety of work carried out by the team on our Moving stories Flickr page.
The technical services section provides technical expertise in the design, manufacture and presentation of collection replicas, interpretative aids and models. They also design and manufacture object mounts, covers and containers for the protection and display of items from National Museums Liverpool's collections. The team of highly skilled technicians have a wealth of experience in collection management, handling, packing and transport of large-scale objects and the preparation, installation, maintenance and dismantling of exhibitions and displays.
Technical services also offer a range of services to external clients through Conservation technologies. Further information is available on the Conservation technologies web pages.
The technical services technicians make individual mounts to cater for the unique needs of each object in the collections. Many objects require simple mounts to prevent damage when they are in store or being worked on by conservators. When an object is put on open display or in a showcase it may need a more complicated display mount. Each display mount needs to support the object in a discrete and safe manner, ensuring that it will still be safe after many months or even years on display.
The mounts are hand crafted out of materials such as acrylic, metal or wood depending on the size, weight and complexity of the object. They range from the very small mounts supporting amulets, delicate watch parts and insects, to the larger, more substantial ones holding in place heavy objects such as stone sculptures, space rockets and totem poles.
In 2008 the team made hundreds of display mounts for the objects in World Museum's new Ancient Egypt gallery. Photographs of some of these mounts being created are in the Providing support for the Ancient Egypt artefacts feature on the blog and also on our Making display mounts Flickr page.
A small but vital team support the safe storage of National Museums Liverpool's vast collection in the museum's stores. Working closely with curators, conservators and the estates department they provide support and maintain the systems to locate and relocate objects. The team ensure that the collections are kept in a maintained environment, ensuring 'good housekeeping' is undertaken to protect and preserve the collections for future generations.
You can see the department at work on our Moving stories Flickr page and read more about what they have been up to recently on the National Museums Liverpool blog, which includes posts about the handling and transport team and technical services.