Project #2 - Miniature Collection

The first Christmas season that I worked for the library, another employee was showing me around the attic in preparation for dragging out all the saved decorations. She showed me a box full of all sorts of small miniature animals and other figurines and told me she didn't know where they had come from. After picking some of them to use in displays, we put the box back into the attic and I promptly forgot about them.



Last Christmas, I was once again rummaging around the attic, and came upon another box of minis. Inside this particular box was a small sign that stated that the figures were a collection originally owned by a woman named Ivy Payne, and that were donated to the library when she died in the 1980's. She was apparently an animal lover who lived in the Elkhart/Slocum area, but I've not been able to find out much else on her.



When I dug farther into the box I found an exquisite china tea set, all in miniature, and a tiny Limoge pitcher and bowl along with several other small vases and figurines. This turned out to be only one box of several, one being the box we found that first year, that contained a huge collection of miniature animals... a lost treasure of sorts, hidden in the attic for years.



When I showed them to our director, she was very excited and wanted them all photographed and added to our catalog for future reference. Little did I know what a job that would turn out to be. You see, there are well over 500 individual objects we have located so far, and I think there very well may be still more hidden in the attic.



Our Catalog Librarian and I brainstormed, trying to figure out the best way of dealing with them, and, never having added an artifact to our catalog in the past, still haven't come up with a good template to accomplish this. You see, our library uses a system called Marc for cataloging. I don't really understand much about it, but from what I gather, it's intended use is for cataloging printed material, not artifacts. In other words, it's not museum software. Anyway, our catalog librarian is working on that puzzle, and I'm confident that she'll figure something out.



In the meantine, it was decided that I would go ahead and begin inventorying and photographing them. I began by sorting the items and then creating standard accession numbers for each different item to be used as one of the identifiers in the record, along with assigning a standard barcode to the item. I've still got a couple of boxes left to go on this task, but, to break the monotony, have also begun photographing them.



Keep in mind that there are 100's of these items, some as small as 1/4" x 1/4", and each one (with the rare exception) has to be dealt with separately. I originally tried using our Canon PowerShot A95 with 5.0 megapixels, on a standard copy stand, but on the smaller items, this didn't produce a clear enough photo. So I brought my camera from home to use, which produces a little better picture. This camera is a PowerShot A630 that has 8.0 megapixels. I also rigged up a small stage using a lightbox and some cardstock, that I placed under the lights on the copy stand. With both the lights from the stand, and the lights from the lightbox turned on, it illuminates the objects pretty well. Using this setup, I was finally able to get some decent photos. I'll try to figure out how to upload a sample photo later in the week so you can see what I mean. If you have any other ideas on how to make a better photo, please don't hesitate to let me know.



I've worked on this project for a total of about 2 months now, off and on, but have had to once again set it aside because of the urgency of other projects. I do plan on getting back to it sometime during the summer, and for now, all the tiny objects are all safely packed in boxes, taking up the limited space in my office. I hope that when I finally get back to the project, I'll have a cataloging template so I can go ahead and totally finish one item before moving on to another. I'll probably be sick of looking at them by the time I'm done, but for now, I think they're a pretty special treasure. :-)