Tour of the collections workshop at the National Archaeology Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Students from the Jaussen & Savignac Master’s 1 programme in Archaeology and Preventive Conservation, along with Delphine Gillot, senior lecturer, were welcomed on 1 April at the National Archaeology Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye by Delphine Peschard, Head of the Collections Management and Preventive Conservation Department.
Against the backdrop of the ongoing restoration of the former royal castle, converted into a museum by Napoleon III in 1862, and an ambitious project to reorganise the collections and the permanent exhibition layout, the students were able to appreciate the importance of the museum manager’s role and their interactions with all members of staff and a network of colleagues from other museums in France and around the world.
The tour of the collections workshop provided an opportunity to address numerous aspects: adapting an historic building to the needs of a 21st-century museum; organising the collections workshop with millions of objects to process; cleaning; inventorying; digitising inventory data; labelling; packaging and movement of collections; sustainability and recycling of containers; loans of objects and consultation for researchers; security of the collections; disaster recovery plans; protection against adverse weather conditions; ...
These subjects contribute to the emergence of a museum that is more suited to its time and more responsive to the expectations of researchers and the needs of the general public.