2

SOONER MAGAZINE

;

The skillful transfer of five million priceless itemsto the new Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of

Natural History is a multi-year projectrequiring steady nerves, strong backs and

a mountain of bubble wrap .

BY MICHAEL WATERS

Adecades-old Apache basket, si-lent a long time, is picked upand carried and erupts in

sound-the musical tones of metalcones dangling from its 41 rawhidefringes . The deerskin basket's tightlywoven patterns are bathed in freshlight for the first time in many years .

Nearby, two pairs of hands exam-ine and wrap a 2,300-year-old Romanoil lamp about the size of a toddler'sfist . The lamp, made ofclay, is layeredin a protective cushion of acid-freepaper and bubble wrap, then packedin a specially crafted storage box .

Welcome to the biggest "movingday" in OU history . These objects-along with roughly 4,999,998 others-are being carefully checked, wrappedand stored for the 1998-99 relocationto the new $37.5 million Sam NobleOklahoma Museum of Natural His-tory, next door to the OU Law Center .

Truth to tell, it is not exactly a

PHOTOS BY ROBERT TAYLOR

moving day, according to Vicki Byre,move coordinator for the museum."And it's not like packing up yourhouse," she adds .

Byre's activities actually are anongoing effort that began in July 1996with six months of planning on herpart . Then, she says, "We startedpacking in January of this year, witha couple of the smaller collections .

"It'll take all of this year and tillSeptember of 1998 just to get thingsprepared for the move," Byre explains ."That's with my four people, plus me,working full time ."

Unpacking this immense histori-cal armada is another story . Approxi-mately 10,000-12,000 of the objectswill be on display when the new mu-seum opens in late 1999. Unpackingthe remainder of the collections willrequire more than an additional year .

Michael Mares, museum director,defines Byre's job as essentially help-

Stacy Brooks, left, andJana Cornelius had to move the classics artifacts from their tiny

storage area to obtain packing room . OMNH move coordinator Vicki Byre, right, stands

by drawers that contain the museum's oldest Native American moccasins and oldest

doll . The world cultures collection cabinets in the background are plastic-covered in an

attempt to combat dust .

ing to "choreographan extremelycom-plicated ballet ." He points out thatnot only does the packing and movinghave to be done in a timely fashion,but that Byre also has to coordinateher work with museum curators andbe flexible with her moving plans-because "research goes on."

The job might not be the type Byreexpected when she first came to OU,but she is comfortable with the de-mands of this challenging role .

Byre moved to Norman in 1990from her position at the Chicago Acad-emy of Sciences . Holding a master'sdegree in ornithology, her museumexperience chiefly lay in the realm ofbird studies .

"I came to this museum and workedfor a little while as a volunteer andthen as a curatorial assistant in thecollections department," she says .

Byre explains that since the mu-seum does not have curators in manyof its collection areas, the collectionsoffice takes care of these non-curated

"You have theopportunity to pull out,handle and wrap upthings that quite

literally haven't beenseen since theywere donated."

collections . That chore includes pestmanagement, handlingofrequests forloans and locating specimens forvisit-ing researchers .

"I became pretty well acquaintedwith our collection areas-everythingfromarcheologyto zoology," Byre says ."I'd do six months here and six monthsthere, and in between I'd fill in withother collection areas."Museum officials naturally

tapped Byre for the newly createdposition of move coordinator . "Iguess I have a reputation for being

organized," she says with a chuckle .Starting in July 1996, Byre spent

the first six months of her appoint-ment "visiting each collection area,taking notes about the size of eachcollection and studying what would bethe best way to prepare each for themove, how many people would it takeand how long would it take ."

She developed a manual that setforth a master plan for moving each ofthe collection areas . Then she askedfor suggestions from curators and theprofessors emeritus who volunteer inthat capacity for some of the non-curated collections .

In addition to budgetingfor an enor-mous volume and variety of packingmaterials, Byre also put four full-timeassistants to work doing the actualpacking .

"We had close to 50 applicants, andfromthose wegotfour verygoodpeoplewho have both museum experienceand common sense . Plus, they be-lieved in one of the main rules Istressed-'If there's any question,please ask. Don't figure it out your-self.'"

In packing the various collections,"you have to be careful and methodi-cal, and at the same time be able towithstand heat and cold and dirt andclimbingup ladders carrying30-poundboxes," she says .

Byre says the new packers "areworking out very well ." Each has aminimum of a bachelor's degree indifferent areas pertaining to themuseum's collections .

"What's good is that with each col-lection we go to, there's at least oneperson there who has a pretty goodbackground in that collection and cansee how things should be handled ."

Fortunately as well, Byre's helpersall appear to be enthusiastic about themultiple challenges presented by thepacking. They see thejob as an oppor-tunity to get a"sneak preview" ofsomeof the fascinating specimens that thenew 190,000-square-foot museumwillhave on display .

Harold Babb, an OU geologygradu-ate, describes the methodical, day-to-day tasks ofinventorying and packing

1997 SUMMER

3

Empty shelves in the classics area testify to the packers'progress . Still awaiting processing are Greek and Romanstatuary, both marble and bronze, and the Greek vases at right .

Above right, Vicki Byre inspects a newly arrived shipment ofbubble wrap in the main building's first floor exhibit area,formerly occupied by the museum's resident mammoth . Wheneach of these 750-foot rolls is exhausted, the packers will haveused 11 miles of the material . The mammoth has been sent toCanada for restoration .

4

SOONERMAGAZINE

The archeology collection-inventoried,packed and ready for the move-fillsstorage shelves in the museum's Building2. The acid-free boxes-part of 6,500purchased at $3 .59 each-contain lithics(points and spears, etc .), pottery, bonesand tools, mostly prehistoric from thepre-Columbian era, some from thehistoric post-European settlement era .

These study skins of (top to bottom)warblers, cardinals and buntings are part

of 25,000 specimens awaiting packing inthe museum's bird range in Building 3.The drawers will be moved in their casesafter each paper liner is changed, thedrawers and cases vacuumed and thespecimens secured in the drawers withbubble wrap . Elsewhere in the room,600 mounted birds have beenindividually hermetically sealed in plasticand frozen to destroy insects.

to be "one ofthe most funjobs I've hadin a long time .

"I'vejust been packing and movingand enjoying the heck out ofit," Babbsays . "You have the opportunity topull out, handle and wrap up thingsthat quite literally haven't been seensince they were donated ."

Sometimes the packaging, as wellas the object itself, gives the movers a

Amid stacks of acid-free packing boxes, Sheila Savage inventories the education

classroom collection's invertebrate paleontology section. The wood-frame auditorium

building where Savage works is located just south of the main museum building .

sense ofhistory . "When we were pack-ing minerals last winter," Babb re-calls, "we unwrapped rocksthatlookedlike they'd come straight from thefield-exceptthe newspapers they werewrapped in were dated 1893 .

"As we unwrapped them, we readan ad for Buffalo Bill'sWildWest Show .And we realized that these had beenwrapped by the original donor andhadn't been opened since."

Babb's "partner" in checking andpacking items, Tim Poteete, says thevariety of specimens to check-andthe demands of properly examiningeach item-keep a repetitive job frombecoming mind-numbing .

Poteete, who has a master's degreein history, explains, "You have to payattention to matching up the cataloguenumbers on the object to the numberin the museum's records . You have tocheck the specimen for insects . Someof the artifacts are really pliable andflexible, while some are very delicate,and you have to be dainty about han-dling them."

Stacy Brooks, who holds degrees ininterior design and history, relishesthe opportunity to work with items inall of the museum's 14 collections,which include archeology, classics,education, ethnology, herpetology, his-tory and textiles, ichthyology, inverte-brates, invertebrate paleontology,mammalogy, minerals, ornithology,paleobotany and vertebrate paleontol-

ogy ."You get a chance to learn a little bit

abouteach ofthese areas," Brooks says .Her packing cohort, Jana Cornelius,

who has an OU degree in anthropol-ogy, agrees . "It was quite a changegoing from archeology, where it wasall rocks and soils, to packing oil lampsfrom ancient Rome and Greece," shesays .

"We wrapped some Egyptian arti-facts a couple of days ago and someBabylonian tablets with writing onthem," Brooks adds .

Working in ethnology, Brooks andCornelius wrap the oil lamps in acid-free paper and protect the shieldedartifact with bubble wrap, writing thecatalogue number on the outside, then

1997 SUMMER 5

packing the finished product in a box .They also agree on the enjoyment ofworking with antiquity .

"Actually we had just noticed a potwith a fingerprint on it, the print ofwhoever had made it . . . those thingsgive these items a lot of character,"Brooks says .

"One ofmy favorite things in arche-ology was when we found Neander-thal tools, 100,000 years old,"Cornelius says . "And I held one, try-ing to imagine the person who held itoriginally ."

This rich variety of materials doescreate complications in the packingprocess . When dealing with thou-sands upon thousands of objects thatrun the gamut from stuffed birds toNavajo weavings, soil samples, draw-ers full of prehistoric fossils andshelves offragile pottery, each type ofspecimen requires its own special pro-cess for wrapping and storing .

The work requires a bit of travelingas well, since the museum's collectionsare spread among 10 campus buildings .

"You go collectionby collection, andusually there will be a special type ofbox the packers will have to use-probably acid-free or built to specialdimensions," Byre says .

"After they've selected the box, theylabel all four sides and the top . Then,the box is prepared by putting archi-val foam or bubble wrap in the hot-tom-these are inert materials thatdon't give off any kind of dangerousfumes that may damage the object .

"Thenthe object is usually wrappedin bubble wrap . For some objects, youwant the bubbles to face inward . Forother objects, it's important for thebubbles to be facing outward if thebubbles might cause a little bit ofrough-ness that could damage the surface ."

She adds that the workers wearwhite cotton gloves in examiningmanytypes of specimens "because the oilson your hands could be damaging tothe object .

"Then, the object is carefully exam-ined to see if there's any pest infesta-tion," Byre continues . In fact, pestexamination can be a critical part ofthe work . The dermestid, a flesh-

6

SOONERMAGAZINE

Just when museum workers thought the archeology collection was completelypacked and ready for transfer, a new collection arrived from a private donor.Jana Cornelius went back to work .

eating beetle, can destroy a specimenfrom withinand "make itcollapserightin your hands." Some types ofobjectshave to be frozenfor up to two weeks tomake sure they are packed away pest-free .

Following the pest inspection, Byresays, "the object's catalogue numbermust be verified and recorded on theinventory sheets listing the box num-bers, so later you can see which boxcontains catalogue number NAM-9-6-54, if you need it ."

The type ofwrapping used on eachitem depends on the item, Byre notes .An artifact made of a plant material,such as a basket, requires bufferedacid-free paper. However, an animalproduct, such as leather or a birdskin,requires acid-free paper which is notbuffered .

"'Buffered' means there's calciumin it, and for some objects that's good,and for others, that's not good," Byrenotes . "The appropriate acid-free pa-per is usually put about the objectbefore it is encased in bubble wrap."

Another challenge, Byre says, is

Move coordinator Vicki Byre calls thisdisplay the skull and horn collection .Each will be vacuumed, cleaned andpacked in blankets for "the big move ."

a

Tim Poteete's white-gloved hands remove an item from theAfrican collection in the world cultures' subdivision of ethnologyto compare its catalog number with inventory sheets . Glovesprotect the artifact from the oils and salts on his hands.

The35,000 specimens of the herpetology collection, which includes amphibiansand reptiles, are stored in jars of ethanol on the fourth floor of Cross Center,formerly adormitory. Since the jars are grouped by family and must be kept innumerical sequence, they will be placed on wooden trays, padded with bubble

wrap, moved out a window by scissor lift, taken to a moving van and transported insingle layers to the new facility . The shelving will be disassembled and relocated tothe new building, ready to receive the specimen jars .

Above, impressions of ancient leaves

and other forms of plant life, part of

the paleobotany collection, are storedin jewelry boxes, each with a loosedata card . The boxes must beindividually stretch wrapped, the

drawers stabilized and the entire

cabinet moved with the drawers intact .

the different storage requirementsof various materials . "Some thingscan't be exposed to plastics, somethings can't be exposed to bufferedpaper-and some things should beexposed to buffered paper."On top of all that are the items

that, by their nature, would not dowell being boxed for a significantperiod of time .

"We havethousands and thousandsofdollars worth ofNavajo weavings,"Byre says . "Those will be unrolled,vacuumed, put back on a roll, coveredwithbrand-new polyethylene plastic,and then hand-carried into the mov-ing van without being put in boxes."

Gallon jars of alcohol are beingused to store fish, snakes, sala-manders, frogs and lizards, Byre says,and mostofthose types ofobjects will

1997 SUMMER 7

be moved in padded wooden crates .After each collection is packed, Byre

says, a formidable challenge remainsin what to do with the boxes them-selves, since obviously the museumhas no extra storage space .

"In many cases, we've taken thingsoutofoldwoodencabinets, eithertakenthe cabinets apart or to Property Con-trol and erected some kind ofshelvinginits place, which we'll uselater in thenew museum . And then we shelve allthe packed boxes."

The goal is not only to get the col-lections to the new facility but also tobe able to locate a given specimen atany time . "Order and inventory areeverything, aside from just makingsure nothing breaks," Byre says . "Acollection is useless if it's separatedfrom its data ."

Last fall, during Byre's prepara-tion phase for the move, she estimatedcollectionsizes, predicted timerequire-ments and calculated the suppliesneeded to move the collections-for

8

SOONERMAGAZINE

example, 300,000 plastic bags, 27,500feet ofarchival foam and 75,000 feet ofbubble wrap . But her detailed prepa-ration did not seem to make the chal-lenge any less daunting .

"One thing that always amazes meis when I go to, say, invertebrate pale-ontology, andjust start opening thesehundreds ofdrawers and see all thesesmall fossils, I think, `My gosh, howare we going to do this?"'

She adds, "When you see the real-ity of the task before us, it hits homethat you're in charge of making surefive million objects get safely to thenew building .

"It's amazing what good shape thecollections are in considering the leaksand the rickety buildings with no heator humidity controls . We're taking outand inspecting each item as we pack it,and so far we've found that most thingsare still in excellent shape-which re-ally says something for the past cura-tors and collection managers, whoworked in difficult conditions ."

These mid-1890s cabins, to be relocatedon the new museum site, are used foreducational activities . The cabin on theleft, donated by Henry Neal of Wanette,was originally a post office and museum .It now is outfitted for a frontier family offour, complete with tools of the period .TheWallace cabin on the right came fromthe Noble area, the gift of Colata Frey .

Byre is satisfied with the progressof the work so far . By mid-1997, thelargest of the museum's collections-archeology, with an estimated threemillion specimens-had been packedaway according to schedule .

Once the job is over and the arti-facts unpacked, Byre says with enthu-siasm, the public will get to see much,much more of its natural and culturalhistory heritage than ever before .

"That's something we'revery proudof," she says .

The packing process is merely onepiece of a multi-faceted plan to getspecimens prepared in time for thenew museum's opening .

"Before probably only 100 to 200objects from the collections were ondisplay at any one time," Byre esti-mates. "In the new building therewill be about 10,000 to 12,000 ob-jects . That's quite an increase!"

Still Director Mares insists thatthe increased numbers only tell partof the story .

"In the old building," he says, "youcould see a dinosaur leg . In the newbuilding, you'll be able to walk underthe entire dinosaur ."

What the museum's future visitorswill not see is the hardworkunder wayto transfer these objects to their newhome safe and sound . But when these"buried treasures" are viewed by thepublic in fresh light, it will be in nosmall part due to the care and pains-taking efforts ofByre and her packingcrew . ..