In recognition of The Walt Disney Family Museum's anniversary, we'd like to look back and share stories of the time, work, and energy that went into buildling our museum. In the second of this series, we remember the efforts that were taken in moving the collection from our original home at Gorgas to our current collection area near the Diane Disney Miller Exhibition Hall. This article was originally written and posted for our museum's first anniversary in 2010 by former registrar Anel Muller.
After two and a half years of planning, preparing and packing, the 16,367-artifact collection of the Walt Disney Family Foundation, made its move into its permanent home on December 10, 2008. The road there had been paved with miles and miles of bubble wrap and large pallet boxes that could create a mansion like fort.
While everyone in the collections department had a hand in helping make the move happen, at the helm were four registrars: Mela Delgado, Jocelyn Park, Rachael Zink, and me. Our job began on March of 2006 when I was hired as the Registrar for the Foundation. At the time, the goal was to get everything cataloged (inventoried and input into a database) before we had to move from our old location at the Gorgas warehouse to our brand new home in the Presidio. The actual move date was an unknown but the daunting task of getting all this work done was obvious. Miniatures were arranged in case after case, awards were clustered together on walls and one-of-a-kind paintings lined the bright red wall in the conference area. Behind closed doors were 6 museum quality cabinets that housed thousands of artifacts from priceless works on paper to the most unique tin toys. All of it had to be re-located.
In the time leading up to the opening of the Museum, we continued to acquire new artifacts at a feverish pace and it quickly became apparent we would need four more cabinets before we moved into our permanent home as well as more staff. Rachael came on staff as an intern to help pack the miniature collection, which had taken a full year to catalog. She was later promoted to Associate Registrar, when the original Associate Registrar, Lynne Phillips, moved to the East Coast. Jocelyn and Mela both came on as interns the following year. I gave Jocelyn the job of drafting a move plan and Mela was responsible for packing all Walt’s awards, which included making boxes for especially fragile pieces under the direction of, our conservator, Martin Salazar. Jocelyn left at the end of her internship but Mela was hired on as an assistant registrar.
Once we were given the move date (sometime in November-December 2008), I devised a very detailed packing schedule. Originally, Rachael and I had envisioned getting pallets and shrink-wrapping all the individual object boxes to large pallets. This would have been extremely tricky because we would have had to limit the boxes to only a handful of standard sizes and could not have properly secured the objects to the pallets months ahead of time. Luckily, Michael Labrie had the inspired idea of using large pallet boxes that could be attached to the pallets instead. The pallet boxes were so large that they fit two registrars sitting crossed legged quite comfortably. This eliminated the need to limit the size and shape of our artifact boxes and we were able to safely pack the boxes ahead of time. Michael devised a system for attaching the boxes to the pallets, which included screws, washers, nuts, and bolts. This system made our lives much easier; albeit darker. The only way to secure the pallet boxes to the pallets with the “Labrie screw system” was to flip the box upside down so that the pallet could be attached. Someone had to get inside the overturned box and hold the screws in place, while someone on the outside would put the pallet on top and secure the bolts. Needless to say, I always had a flashlight with me.
Mela, Rachael and I packed 15 pallets in about 3 months! While all this occurred, we also had monthly artifact selection meetings for the museum and new acquisitions kept pouring into Gorgas. Our schedule was our lifeline and the only thing that kept us organized and sane.
Meanwhile, Martin Salazar and his two assistants, Issey Honton and Harvey Newman had to create custom boxes for the more fragile items in the collection: over 1200 awards and 20 character model statues. They ended up creating a very sophisticated box design for the character model statues as well as other standard box designs. Additionally, they had to devise a system to move our numerous oversized posters. Their ingenuity afforded us the opportunity to move 1200 posters in 4 simple trays. While all the packing occurred, this group was also tackling decisions about materials for cases in our museum, preparing the artifacts for exhibition, and devising a system for creating facsimiles.
Mark Gibson had the duty of making sure that every single artifact was photographed or a scanned and he printed images for the curatorial team to use as mock artifacts during the museum case design phase. Finally, Michael Labrie was busy coordinating the trucks for the move and at the same time dealing with the details of the construction of our new collection storage area as well as the specifics of the exhibits.
Before we headed out to our new home, maps were drawn of the collections area and each pallet was assigned to a different room. On the day of the move, all the members of the Collections department were assigned a room and were required to direct the pallets in the right direction. Issey had the job of recording the day with his camera. With all the preparation and planning, the move went off without a hitch. December 10, 2008 was not only a fresh start for the operations of the Walt Disney Family Foundation Collections department, but it was also a great example of how well we work as a team or, better yet, a quirky little family.