Don't Let the Adventure Be Over

This is an email I got this week. Have I let the adventure be over? This has not been an easy few weeks. This last trip was home was the first time that I really did not want to leave Deneen, Martin, Lucas, and Davis. The emergency of the hurricane is over. We are back on track at the museum trying to move the new development on Provo forward. But things that were adventures two years ago have become all too common and now are just extremely frustrating.

The day I returned I had a flat tire on the way to the museum. The owners and shakers of tour companies have been on GT over the last couple of weeks. New tour excursions plans are due, as this is the end of the cruise season. Oh, this is the end of the cruise season. It is also the end of the community college semester as well. We have been limping all season with staffing, and now everyone wants to work -all the time. I am working on a new plan where staff are paid from earned revenue. This is hard concept here. We have had half the guests as in March. Staff hours have dropped accordingly. And this has gone over like a lead paycheck.

This week the condensor pan on one of the new AC units rusted through (not a new pan) and we had water infiltration into the new library shelving. I deal with this all, but it just gets in the way of the work that I woul dreally like to get done.

Today, I met with the heads of every government department about the Salina Master Plan project and a UESCO World Heritage proposal that another NGO is putting forth.

There are some bright spots though. The first week I was back we had a couple stop by looking who wanted to see the maps they had left on loan with the museum in 2004. They were not in the new PastPerfect database and their paperwork is not in the file. Because of all of reorganization in the library and archives that has been completed by Tyffany and Jessica over the last 8 months we were able to find two of the maps right away. The third was located shortly after.

The couple wanted to know how their maps fit into our collection. I explained to them what we had. One of their maps is actually the oldest map in our map file. I talk to them about the hurricane and how the museum came through with out a loss to our collections. I talked at length of the cost associated with long-term preservation and how hard it is for museum's to justify taking things on loan. When they returned a couple days later to pick up their new paperwork (we gave their items new numbers with locations tagged to the database) they asked us to prepare new paperwork and gifted the maps to the museum.

I would love to take credit for this. But this was a shining example of how effective Jessica and Tyffany have been as visiting archivists. Professional staff make all the difference in the world.