The Wilcox Museum acquisition history

Abstract

The Wilcox Museum at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas is in need of digitizing and organizing all of their paperwork from 1888 to current (2021). A majority of their documentation has begun to fade with time and they risk losing the history and object information that these documents hold. While preserving these documents an acquisition history will be written for the museum to use for future endeavors, including but not limited to the grant applications for building renovations they are currently working towards. The documents preserved and used in this project range from purchase receipts made by the museum in various years, a general museum history written in 1966, deed of gift which document the many gifts given to the museum in the form of historical objects, letter correspondences dealing with the many concerns that come with running a museum, and photographs of objects within the museum collection. The goal of this project was to trace the acquisition history of the Wilcox Classical Museum’s collection. This project would help to organize the object history, possibly fill in information gaps on some objects, and digitize all surviving documentation to preserve information from fading documents. Outlined below are the steps taken to achieve the goals of the project and all information discovered during this process. This project benefits the museum by preserving the history of their collection and giving the museum a written traceable history that can be used for future endeavors. It also helps to outline collecting patterns over the years since it opened in 1888 to current 2021. This project also sets out a system in which other museums who encounter this issue can follow to accomplish the same or similar outcome of preservation and traceable history.