Museums' survival depends on their ability to reach out

Abe Shragge, curator of San Diego's Veterans Museum & Memorial Center, stumbled across a tiny Spanish-American War medal while searching through boxes of uncatalogued items. Barely the size of a thumb, the medal links a miniature cloth American flag to bronze emblems of an eagle, a crossed rifle and sword, and a seal.

In a museum with a bigger budget, the medal might be proudly displayed in a sealed protective case in a climate-controlled room. But here, the already tarnished medal will be exposed to damaging light and humidity in the expansive former military chapel that houses the museum.

In fact, nearly everything is vulnerable to San Diego's moist seaside climate, from military uniforms to flags to old paper documents. There's no air conditioning, so the doors are usually flung open, letting in plenty of outside air and sunlight.

Mr. Shragge knows this isn't good for the museum's treasured collection of military memorabilia dating to the Civil War. But, he says, the reality is that "we have limited staff, funding, and expertise to do all the things we need to do."

In a recent report, the most extensive of its kind, a watchdog group warns that thousands of American museums are in similar straits. A survey of 3,370 institutions by the nonprofit group Heritage Preservation found that some 612 million artifacts - from photographs and paintings to nature specimens and pottery - are at risk of deterioration because they aren't cared for properly.

Nearly 60 percent of institutions surveyed acknowledged that light has damaged their collections, while 53 percent said moisture caused problems. And, like the Veterans Museum in San Diego, 26 percent of those surveyed have no special controls in place to protect their collections from light, temperature, and humidity.

Perhaps most strikingly, 80 percent of the institutions surveyed don't pay anyone to preserve their collections. "We were shocked at how grim the situation is," says Heritage Preservation's Kristen Overbeck Laise.

The report, issued in December, lists several stories of museum preservation gone wrong. A lack of proper climate control at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, for example, has damaged the hides of its preserved elephants. Insect infestations and a steam leak threaten to destroy the University of Connecticut's huge collection of preserved animal life. In Washington, D.C., improper climate control at the city's public-records office threatens the last will and testament of black abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass.

Back in San Diego, Shragge says he knows his museum needs to better preserve its collections, and he's been working to buy protective containers. Volunteers are helping to scan photos and documents so they'll be preserved even if they fall apart.

But not every improvement is on tap. Climate control? "That's something I dream about," Shragge says. After all, the museum's annual budget is only about $200,000, and funds are hard to come by.

"My sense is that it's getting more and more difficult to generate donations and grants," Shragge says. "I don't know how we'd do it without someone who's really skilled in raising money and going after the larger kinds of grants that can really support an institution like this."

To make matters more difficult, the museum is little-known, even though it's in San Diego's landmark Balboa Park, home to the San Diego Zoo and one of the largest groupings of museums in the US.

Besides relying on small budgets and volunteers who may not have specialized knowledge about collection preservation, many museums also face equipment problems. "It's a real challenge to get funding for unsexy things," says Cindy Stankowski, director of the San Diego Archaeological Center, which collects and stores artifacts dug up during local construction. "When the HVAC [climate-control system] goes down or you need shelving, people are saying, 'Shelving? Who cares?' "

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