The Bulkley Valley Museum held an open house last week to show off history on display with its new shelves.
“This is the first time that I’m aware of that we’ve done something like this,” museum curator Kira Westby said. “We just wanted to share with the community all the work that we’re been doing and share with them some of the challenges we face and also our successes.”
The new shelves are adjustable and move on a track on the floor which increases the museum’s storage capacity by 25 per cent, Westby said.
The shelves were paid for by a $28,000 grant from the BC Museums Association. The grant funds culture and heritage projects in not-for-profit museums, art galleries, culture centres and heritage sites in the province.
The museum was closed to the public in January while they installed the new shelves.
“It was kind of like a big game of Tetris because you’re trying to figure out, OK, what’s the best way to fill a shelf with x number of items to maximize space,” Westby said.
Westby said the museum is still a long ways away from completing it’s digitization project. To date the museum has uploaded about 4,000 photographs of artifacts online and posted about 40 documents.
Westby said she expects to put a lot more photographs online this summer since they’ll have summer students to assist with the process.
“Unfortunately, our archivist will be leaving us because her contract and the grant she was on is ending in September so that will really slow down digitization on the archival side,” Westby said. “It will probably take another couple years to fully finish everything because we’re doing this in addition to doing exhibits and events.”
