This is a guest post written by Jessie Storlien, Archivist at the Stearns History Museum. Need a mini-grant to help purchase new materials or help fund a program? Apply now!

As a result of purchasing these materials, can you identify and explain a few things you can use/apply to your work or practice?

The Research Center in the Stearns History Museum is currently processing a large influx of archival materials that have arrived within the last year.

The items include documents, photos, audio-visual materials, ephemera, and other archival materials. The collections range from the St. Cloud Herberger’s department store and the Rausch family of Cold Spring to Kollmann Monumental Works and the Herbrandson family of Brooten, among many other documents that have been collected or donated to the Archives.

Acid-free, lignin-free archival boxes allow us to properly store and preserve these materials. Since purchasing the boxes we have begun organizing and processing the new materials. The boxes help us continue to preserve and store 2D archival materials in a publicly accessible retrieval system.

This grant supports Stearns History Museum’s mission to connect people to the power of history and culture by collecting, preserving, and interpreting its historical and cultural resources. The storage boxes allow for improved access to our collections by staff and the audiences we serve.

What were your favorite takeaways or new things learned?
There are many factors in creating accessibility in a library. Space, shelving, and storage containers all play an important part in processing and organizing new materials and collections.

The storage boxes Stearns History Museum ordered using the money we received from CMLE will allow us to continue making accessibility and conservation a priority at our organization by giving us a place to properly store processed collections. When stored in an ideal environment, collections are preserved for future generations of families and researchers.