Museum Roundup News & Updates from the Maine State Museum January 2022 Museum Collections on the Move It’s all in a day’s work as museum staff divide their attention between collections moves in the Cultural Building and major work to shift collections in museum storage. What’s been going on in museum storage? The first project was the installation of a fire suppression system. As the project unfolded in multiple storage rooms, collections had to be moved aside for protection as installers brought in ladders, tools, and pipe for work in tightly-packed spaces. More moves followed last fall when the state’s Bureau of General Services funded the replacement of old air handling units in museum storage. Welcomed by staff for the improvements to the storage environment, the upgrade still brought disruption as the three new hanging units in museum storage (each about 240 cubic feet) involved a complex, weeks-long installation by contractors. Despite the seemingly endless moves and disturbances, the museum storage upgrades have a silver lining as they will help preserve invaluable Maine objects and specimens for years to come.

The Latest... NEWS CENTER Maine visits the Maine State Museum Watch the video here! Join us on January 20th Get updated on museum news and plans at the Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Maine State Museum, and hear from participants in the collaborative, one-of-a-kind Remarkable Maine Women artists’ book, created by the Critique Group at the University of Southern Maine’s Center for Book Arts and now part of the museum's collection! Register for this free 50-minute online program, scheduled for Thursday 1/20 at 6 pm. New Year, New Digs MSM staff have found a new (temporary) home while renovation continues at the Cultural Building. A nearby office space has reunited coworkers as they tackle plans for the museum’s present and future. The museum’s mailing address: 83 State House Station, Augusta, Maine 04333-0083, and phone number: 207-287-2301 remain the same. More About Moves It’s been 40 years since Maine State Museum staff and contractors created exhibitions showing the large equipment and tools of Maine’s extractive industries. A galamander (stone wagon) used to transport large blocks of granite, and a derrick, which lifted granite slabs within a quarry, have been part of that decades-long presentation. Planned asbestos abatement, as well as remodeling to better serve museum education programming, are bringing big changes to spaces around the granite exhibit.  Click on the video above to get a first-hand, behind the scenes look at the changes afoot. See the remarkable work of Auburn-based Cote Crane and Rigging, as they disassemble the galamander to place it in museum storage, and then watch them prepare the derrick’s iron sections for transfer to the Vermont Granite Museum in Barre, near the quarry where the derrick was used originally.    Watch the move

Museum Receives Grants to Extend Reach of Maine Labor Mural

Three panels from the Maine Labor Mural MSM 2019.1 Ryan Walker, Dave Hunt, and Zach Dozier move panels of the Maine Labor Mural onto a cart for safe transportation to museum storage.  Two grants recently received by the Maine State Museum will provide funding to put additional educational information about the Maine Labor Mural on the museum’s website. Granted by the Maine Humanities Council and Maine Arts Commission, the funds will allow in-depth information featuring the mural’s images, people, stories, and historical events to be adapted for web-based engagement by online users. The museum had previously presented the Maine Labor Mural, along with a richly layered touchscreen interactive, in the atrium of the Cultural Building in Augusta. With the recent closure of the Cultural Building, in-person public access to the mural has been temporarily lost. The web presentation, scheduled for completion later this year, will address that loss and dramatically extend the reach of the Labor Mural’s visual stories. The 11-panel Maine Labor Mural was created by artist Judy Taylor in 2007-2008 and came to the museum from the Maine Department of Labor in 2013. Its large evocative images show scenes of people and events in Maine’s labor history, such as women textile workers, child labor, the 1937 shoe strike, woods workers, and labor reformers.

MAINE STATE MUSEUM | www.mainestatemuseum.org

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