Planning for a Sustainable Preservation Environment

FAIN: PF-280923-21

Boulder Historical Society (Boulder, CO 80302-7224)
Chelsea Pennington Hahn (Project Director: January 2021 to October 2022)
Elizabeth Nosek (Project Director: October 2022 to present)

A planning grant to assess the museum’s aging HVAC system and inspect the overall building envelope for a collection of over 40,000 artifacts documenting the history of Boulder, Colorado.

The Museum of Boulder’s project Planning for a Sustainable Preservation Environment will prepare the Museum to create a stable environment in which to store its diverse humanities-based collection. Currently, temperatures inside the collections storage facility fluctuate drastically throughout the year, causing damage to artifacts and endangering our unique collection. We will work with expert partners to explore sustainable methods to improve climate control and determine the specific needs of our artifacts. The Museum’s collection of 40,000 objects is the largest repository of the history of Boulder, which has long been a hub of civic engagement, the natural foods movement, and science and technology innovations. Preserving the history of this city is a crucial part of preserving the history of the American West and supporting research, education, and lifelong learning for our visitors from Boulder County and the rest of the country.