collections care – Melanie Coffee Consulting

When I first started working at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, online museum care guides for taxidermy were few and far between. Two of us working in collections dubbed ourselves “Team Taxidermy” and started reaching out to anyone we could find from taxidermists to museum folks, to taxidermy bird cleaning seminar hosts, trying to learn as much as we could about the care and feeding of the “silent zoo”. Tim Bovard, taxidermist at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, was one of the people we were thrilled to hear back from. We fell down a deep rabbit hole, learning about the father of modern taxidermy and creator of the Field Museum’s dramatic dioramas, Carl Akeley, who famously killed a leopard “with his bare hands” while in the field in Somalia in 1896. The Field still exhibits the Akeley dioramas to this day.

Today, there are far more free online resources on taxidermy care available. Here are some of our favorites:
Connecting To Collections Care: Troublesome Trophies and Fragile Feathered Friends: Intro to the Care of Historic Taxidermy webinar and the associated Taxidermy Online Resource & Bibliography
London Natural History Museum’s Conservation Centre: Standards in the care of skins and taxidermy collections
Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA): Care and Conservation of Natural History Collections – Vertebrates pdf (reproduced from Carter, D. & Walker, A. K. (1999). Care and Conservation of Natural History Collections. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. with permission from publishers, editors, and all contributors)

Taxidermy mounts are complex artifacts that can be damaged by various environmental and biological factors. Whether you have a single trophy mount displayed in your home, several mounts forming a diorama in a museum or a collection of natural science specimens, it is essential to understand how these mounts and skins are made, how they deteriorate, and how to care for them to ensure their preservation.

We’ve developed an in-state network of taxidermy professionals who can assist with taxidermy needs in private and public collections. From cleaning to pest mitigation, don’t hesitate to contact us if your mounts need attention and care.

Image of backlit lantern slide with blue emulsion and white lettering. — Lantern Slide Transparency Scan. Collection of the Gem Theater.

We recently collaborated with the Gem Theater on cataloguing, photographing and packing artifacts onsite in Pioche, Nevada. Pioche’s Gem Theater is a 1930s movie theater, included on the National Register of Historic Places, that is currently undergoing restoration. Phase one of the collections project focused on the documentation, digitization and preservation of the Gem’s wonderful lantern slide collection.

After much research, the process we largely followed was developed by Penn State University Libraries for their Mira Dock Forestry Lantern Slide Collection and kindly posted as a free reference for everyone to access. Each lantern slide was cataloged in Excel, cleaned with acid-free film cleaner, scanned in two different modes using our Epson V850 Pro scanner, cleaned again, rehoused in archival sleeves and packed inside archival boxes.

Lantern slide in open archival envelope. — Lantern Slide in archival envelope. Collection of the Gem Theater.

As a photographer, I was happy we had the opportunity to work with this interesting collection – and it did not disappoint. Do you have undocumented photographic or film collections that needs some care? We would love to help!