32,000 Records and Counting: MAA’s Stores Move Project

32,000 Records and Counting: MAA’s Stores Move Project In September 2020, the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology (MAA) commenced a five- year project to move all offsite collections - c. 8,600 boxes as well as large objects - to the newly refurbished Cambridge Nuclear Bunker, close to the city centre. The Stores Move Project is much more than a ‘simple’ move, however. The estimated 250,000 objects are being physically checked, their catalogue records updated and their condition assessed,
before being photographed and repacked by the project’s nine Collections Assistants. The improved records are immediately publicly accessible via the museum’s online catalogue and the images can be downloaded for free.
Behind the overarching five-year plan, however, are the daily realities: of Collections Assistants processing an average of one object every 15 minutes; of Collections Managers preparing the ground ahead and checking the updated records; of database development to create logistical efficiency and of policy writing to ensure best practice. In this paper we will discuss these practical issues, as well as the opportunities that this project has afforded us as an institution and as museum archaeologists.
In developing the Stores Move Project, MAA benefitted tremendously from the experience and honest advice of colleagues across the sector who were undertaking, or had recently completed, stores moves. Two years into our own project, this paper seeks to continue that dialogue in an effort to benefit colleagues contemplating a future move, or any project involving the large-scale processing of collections.
Imogen Gunn is the Collections Manager for Archaeology at MAA, where she has worked since 2006. She is part of the team that planned the Stores Move Project and 50% of her time is allocated to the project.
Lily Stancliffe is one of nine Collections Assistants working on MAA’s Stores Move Project. In the past two years she has processed thousands of objects as part of the project.