A preservation assessment of a museum collection of approximately 30,000 artifacts housed in the historic Newport Casino, site of the first U.S. National Lawn Tennis Championship in 1881.  Highlights include a variety of fine and decorative art works, jewelry, trophies, clothing, and memorabilia relating to the history of tennis from its origins during the Renaissance to the present. In addition, the museum maintains 300,000 photographs and slides and 8,500 books, periodicals, and audiovisual records associated with the history of tennis.

The International Tennis Hall of Fame seeks to hire a consultant to work jointly with the museum staff to conduct a spatial and needs assessment of the collections storage and work areas. The consultant’s report will address the current collections storage area, the library, conference room, and staff work areas, focusing on storage spatial requirements, equipment and housings, environmental management and monitoring, and access. This report will assist in revising our Strategic Plan and Collections Plan. Our facility interprets the history of tennis and its impact on our culture, as well as the building which is representative of the Gilded Age in Newport, Rhode Island and is a National Historic Landmark.

A preservation assessment of 200 scrapbooks that document the history of tennis in the late 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the social history of the Newport Casino, a men's club that served as an early venue for tennis. Highlights of the collection include the personal scrapbooks of business titan Jay Gould, an avid court tennis player, as well as the scrapbooks of Helen Hull Jacobs and Alice Marble, which chronicle the development of women's tennis from the 1920s to the 1950s. Once a preservation plan is implemented, the scrapbooks would join the museum's other humanities collections made publicly available through exhibitions, public programs, and research services.

The International Tennis Hall of Fame seeks to hire a consultant from the Northeast Document Conservation Center to prepare a written report on the museum's scrapbook collection. The consultant's report will address an overview of the scrapbooks, how they are presently housed and maintained, suggested guidelines for the preservation of the scrapbooks, recommendations for protective enclosures, and three treatment proposals for those scrapbooks in immediate need of conservation. This report will assist in developing conservation and interpretive plans for the museums. Our facility interprets the history of tennis and its impact on our culture as well as the building which is representative of the Gilded Age in Newport, RI, and is a National Historic Landmark.