Royal Engineer Museum Interview
Danielle Sellers, Collection Manager at the Royal Engineer Museum in Kent worked with Rackline to install a comprehensive storage solution to house the museum’s extensive collection of artifacts.
Together, the compendium of historical items tell a story that encompasses the extremes of human experience in peace and war as well as showcasing 300 years of military, engineering and scientific development.
Danielle has given a fantastic testimonial of the completed project, which will help to keep these important pieces safe for future generations.
The Brief:
The Royal Engineers Museum collection contains over a million items, comprising personal diaries, official reports, photographs, equipment, memorabilia and ethnography. Our facilities were not to a standard expected in a museum and as the collection grew, accessing artifacts became very difficult and sometimes hazardous for both the collection and Curatorial Staff.
The racking was also unsuitable for the variance in size and weight of the collection.
The former means of storing the artifacts meant that items were located over several sites causing an unnecessary waste of time as we had to travel to each site to answer enquiries. The collection also endured sporadic temperatures as seasons changed, which meant artifacts could deteriorate quickly.
Therefore, we required a complete redevelopment of an area within the museum to consolidate our collection to sit under one roof, using a range of racking solutions from Rackline.
The Process:
We have successfully worked with Rackline in the past and were particularly pleased with Area Sales Manager, Tom Hulks’ very friendly and helpful approach. He listened to what we wanted and put forward some excellent suggestions that are now installed as part of the collection’s storage solution.
The area of renovation consisted of a long narrow corridor and five or six rooms which were very old and needed completely redecorating after years of being vacant.
To open-up the space, it was essential to remove walls and then reinforce remaining partitions to give them the strength to hold the weight of the archived collection, which includes weighty glass slides, bulky oversized books and large maps.
The Solution:
The new storage solution from Rackline is fundamental to our work in preserving the collection.
The vast project has meant that our precious archive is now under one roof in a temperature-controlled space, and with easy retrieval for each piece. It has resulted in first-class care of the collection and safer access for the museum Curatorial Staff.
The museum now benefits from roller racking throughout the long corridor featuring different sizes and depths to house various artifacts. Rackline also installed a set of reference shelves that allow Curatorial Staff to peruse materials and log each piece without difficulty.
We now have lots of capability to grow and add to our priceless collection due to the mobility of the racking, for at least the next twenty to thirty years. The museum looks forward to welcoming tours, giving a ‘behind the scenes’ insight to educate visitors on how much work goes into looking after such an extensive collection.
Would you recommend Rackline?
The process of designing and installing our new archive with Rackline has been effortless. Tom Hulks is an asset to their business and we have been so pleased to have worked with him again. From measuring the space to sourcing materials, Rackline have given us a fantastic solution that will continue to house our collection for many years to come.
