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Transferring objects to the Warren Anatomical Museum
Collections acquired by the Center are frequently accompanied by objects designed, manufactured, or utilized by collection creators as a product of research, professional, or teaching activities. These objects offer insight into the technical approaches utilized by an individual or research team and can inform our understanding of both historic and contemporary practices -- as well as fuel new knowledge -- through instrumentation, specimens, and cultural objects. Processors should be alert to special handling procedures for objects found in collections and pay descriptive attention to three-dimensional works that offer synergies between the lives of creators, the history of Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, those who used or manufactured the objects, and resulting intellectual outputs.
Items acquired by the Warren are governed by a separate collections development plan maintained and implemented by the Curator; not all objects acquired with a collection are appropriate for transfer. When you encounter objects in a manuscript collection or archival series, adhere to the below guidelines.
Items acquired by the Warren are governed by a separate collections development plan maintained and implemented by the Curator; not all objects acquired with a collection are appropriate for transfer. When you encounter objects in a manuscript collection or archival series, adhere to the below guidelines.
- If you find objects or specimens (such as microscope slides, instruments, models, packaged products, tissue samples, etc.), contact the Curator for an object consult. The Curator will determine if the object(s) should be transferred to the Warren. Consult the Curator every time you find a new group of objects or proceed using a consult schedule established by the Curator.
- If the objects will be transferred, separate them from the collection and insert a printed “Transferred to the Warren Anatomical Museum” sheet in the folder or box the object was removed from, listing the number and types of items transferred, and creation dates of those items if known.
- Items not appropriate for transfer should remain with the collection. Consult the Collections Services Archivist about how to update processing plans to accommodate objects or to discuss reappraisal and/or deaccessioning.
- Photocopy related records in the folder an object was kept in to ensure context is maintained (such as correspondence, design notes, etc.). Photocopied records should directly relate to the object(s). If a microscope slide or other object is not accompanied by any documentation, prepare a short summary of how the object relates or may relate to the work of the collection creator that can go in the Museum’s object file and catalog record. Keep photocopied or written documentation with the object removed.
- Keep separated objects in the stacks with the manuscript or archival collection until processing is complete. (Do not bring objects to the Curator “one at a time.”) Objects will be accessioned to the Warren as a single group transferred from a collection.
- Object handing:
- Always use nitrile gloves when handling microscope slides
- If microscope slides (or other objects) are in their original housing (wood boxes, metal boxes, etc.), do not remove them from their boxes; keep them in their original containers
- If you find single broken microscope slides, sleeve them in unbuffered negative sleeves and then put them in open-top archival accordion folders. Continue to file broken microscope slides in the accordion folder until it has reached its 2” expansion capacity. Insert a sheet of archival bond paper on both sides of the object for additional protection, as accordion folders are made with buffered paper
- Groups of unbroken, loose microscope slides can be placed in open-top archival accordion folders without sleeves. Insert a sheet of archival bond paper on both ends of the folder for additional protection
- Store instruments, models, or other objects in records center cartons until they are transferred
- When processing is complete, set up a formal transfer meeting with the Curator. The Curator will provide you with an accession number to refer to in the finding aid. Post meeting, the Curator will prepare an Internal Transfer Agreement for the CSA to sign. The CSA will file the copy of the transfer form with the control file for the collection.
- Post accession, the Curator will catalog the objects transferred as time permits. When cataloging is complete, the Curator will provide the CSA with catalog numbers for revising the finding aid.
- Processors should record information about the transfer in the finding aid, employing the <processinfo> and <separatedmaterial> tags.