Museum Vision Meeting and Museum Roadshow Coming to Seldovia!

by Jan Yaeger – Seldovia Village Tribe

The Seldovia Museum wants you to tell us where to go!  We are committed to being a true community museum, and we want as much of the Seldovia Community as possible involved as we set goals and develop a road-map to guide us through the coming years.

On Saturday, April 6, we will host a “Vision Meeting” to gather public input for the Seldovia Museum’s five-year strategic plan. Scott Carrlee, Curator of Museum Services for the Alaska State Museum, will facilitate the meeting, and it will be an open forum to share ideas and develop a vision for our Seldovia Museum.

Immediately following the Vision Meeting, Scott will host a “Museum Roadshow”. Unlike PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow”, where it’s all about “what’s it worth”, Scott will not be doing monetary appraisals. But it is a great opportunity to bring in some of your personal items and learn more about them, such as how old they are and what they’re made of. If you have some mystery objects you’ve been wondering about, Scott can probably either tell you what they are or connect you with someone who can. And, possibly most important of all, Scott can tell you the best way to take care of those family treasures so they can be protected for years to come.

Scott will be packing a nifty new tool of the museum trade when he arrives: an X-Ray Fluorescence Analyzer. This device allows Scott to tell exactly what materials metal items are made of. Although it is cutting-edge technology, there is no cutting or sampling required; it works without damaging the item being examined. Is that heavy gold ring you picked up at a thrift shop actually gold, or is it a clever mix of lead, copper and brass? Is your great-aunt’s silver teapot solid silver or silver plate? This tool can tell you. Just be certain you want to know the answer!

Many gold items are stamped with a carat weight, which is supposed to indicate the relative percentage of gold in the object. However, some gold isn’t stamped, and sometimes stamps aren’t accurate. But physics don’t lie, and Scott will able to determine an accurate carat weight for gold items, which in turn indicates the purity of the gold.

Although Scott has experience in a variety of museum fields, his main expertise is as a conservator. So once you know what your item is and what it’s made of, Scott can give you some excellent recommendations about the best ways to store or display it and how best to care for it. Should it be left untouched to protect a precious patina, or would it be even more glorious with a careful cleaning? Scott will have great tips for how to preserve a wide variety of items.

The Vision Meeting and Museum Roadshow will begin at 6:00 pm, Saturday, April 6th at the Sea Otter Community Center. We will have a dessert potluck, so please consider bringing a treat to share. But most important, bring your ideas for our Seldovia Museum! If you have any questions, please feel free to call Jan at 435-3245 or email jyaeger@svt.org. We hope to see you there!