Project 5: What's in the Box?

Project #5: Inventory at HCF

April 30, 2009
10AM - 3PM

On April 30th volunteers returned to Historic Columbia Foundation for their second project with the organization, and under the supervision of Collections Manager Alexis Thompson. From mid-morning to late afternoon the Collections Volunteer Group inventoried boxes from the Woodrow Wilson House that were moved recently into the Hampton-Preston Mansion of HCF. Members in attendance: Halie Brazier, Nate Johnson, Amanda Roddy,
and Sarah Scripps.

Alexis began by showing us some of the storage areas, where we discussed some issues that historic houses deal with, as well as some innovative measures HCF has taken. She showed us the new period room they are developing, wherein they will recreate a girl's dormitory from Chicora College which was housed in the mansion. Afterwards, we dove into the boxes, which contained lace table runners, women's clothing, purses, even natural history specimens (???) among other things. To assist in our inventory, Alexis demonstrated the PastPerfect (collections management) database for Nate and Sarah, who had never used it before. Using the computer and our paper materials, we worked in pairs to inventory the objects and make note of their condition. After a pizza lunch provided by Alexis, we finished up our inventory around 3pm. Thank you to all who were involved!

I want to echo Jan's congrats in the last post -- we have two new student coordinators for the '09-'10 school year and they have some great ideas for this group! Amanda Roddy and Sarah Scripps, both Public History/Museum Studies students -- I wish you the best of luck!

For more images from this project, click here

Post by Halie Nowell, 08-09 Student Project Coordinator