Storage of functional objects

At the Australian War Memorial we are currently designing a maintenances
and monitoring program for the functional objects (tanks, vehicles,
aircraft) in our collections. As part of this process we would like to
know what the practices are in the wider museum community. Hence we are
interested in comments on the following, either direct or through the
lists.

What processes do you use for long and short term storage of functional
objects?

    How do you monitor these processes performance?

    Do you use exercise in the preservation maintenance process? Why? Why
    not?

    What materials do museums use?

    What testing was done to choose these materials? Why? Why not?

    Any comments on the problems of functional objects collections
    display, storage and "use".

David Hallam
Senior Conservator of Objects
John Treloar Centre for Conservation Science

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 8:45
                 Distributed: Sunday, December 11, 1994
                        Message Id: cdl-8-45-009
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