Cabot House Collection Storage Planning
FAIN: PG-258268-18
Beverly Historical Society (Beverly, MA 01915-5108)
Abby Battis (Project Director: April 2017 to August 2019)
A
preservation assessment of a collection in the historic Cabot House, which
includes archival records, photographs, and historic objects (750,000 items in
total). They document the history of Beverly, an early industrial town and
seaport, incorporated in 1668, as well as the maritime history of New England in
the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Beverly Historical Society's headquarters is a Beverly history museum and the repository for its archival, photographic and artifact storage. The collection’s strengths are 18th and 19th c. maritime material and images of the people, organizations, and places of Beverly over 200 years. The structure is ill-equipped to serve as a museum, lacking climate-controlled collection storage or accessibility. The Society is exploring a renovation which would result in an accessible facility with fully-conditioned storage spaces and expanded services. The collection, with approximately 750,000 total items will need to be packed and stored for the duration of the project, and the new storage spaces will need to be properly configured. The Society will engage a collections preservation consultant to conduct a needs assessment of the collection and develop a storage plan to guide the proposed renovations. These will useful for planning purposes and critical if the renovation moves forward.