Behind-the-Scenes Tours Coming Up!

“…The important work that most of us never see, or even think about.”

(Text as posted on the Friends of the New Brunswick Museum Facebook Group by supporter Doug McLean)

We just got back from a tour of the New Brunswick Museum Collections and Research Centre on Douglas Avenue.

When you visit the museum in Market Square, you don’t realize that it is just the very small tip of a very big iceberg. The building on Douglas Avenue is completely crammed full of “stuff”, most of it irreplaceable, and all of it interesting. It really is unbelievable the number of items housed in the Douglas Ave building.

When most people think of “The Museum”, they think of the Exhibition Centre at Market Square. But the museum is so much more, and the public display, while very interesting, is probably the least important part of what the museum does.

Besides preserving artifacts from our past, the museum collects and preserves things from the world around us today. They do research and allow others to do research on a wide variety of topics, both of historical interest, and of interest to some of the things that are of concern us today in the modern world.

“Phenomenal Collection. Top-Notch Expertise. Space is Limited.”

There is no denying that the New Brunswick Museum is in dire need of an expansion.  Even if the roof weren’t threatening to cave in, and the gypsum walls weren’t moving outwards, there is simply no room in the Collections Centre.  Valuable research and educational work is taking place there, but in very cramped quarters — literally in former broom closets, at desks stuck in spare spaces between storage cases, at folding tables, and in a room originally used for coal storage. Expert scientists from other institutions apply to come and work in these conditions.  Why?  Because that is how remarkable the collection and expertise at the NB Museum’s Collection Centre is. The day I visited:

• I met a local high school co-op student who was working to number and catalogue the tiny bones of a Great Auk, a flightless bird that became extinct in the 19th century.  (How cool is that?  That a local student had that opportunity right here in Saint John?)
• I met a woman who was studying the white nose fungus that has annihilated the bat population.
• I saw a refrigerator of those fungus cultures growing, and whose research was not  merely of interest to those trying to save the bats, but also pharmaceutical companies interested in what practical uses may be found to assist people’s health.  (Penicillin came from bread mold, after all.)

I saw and learned so much more — so much that I can barely remember it all, and certainly can’t do it justice here.  If at all possible, you must go on one of the behind-the-scenes tours that the New Brunswick Museum offers.  The next tour day is scheduled for March 16, 2015. Please take the time to view these photographs so you can learn some of what I did that day.

The Roof Situation at the Collections Centre

Here is the roof information I received from NBM CEO Jane Fullerton when I asked about it last week.  This information was also shared in the public discussions last spring and summer, and at the Behind-the-Scenes tours that the NBM has been hosting. Unless otherwise noted, these are Ms. Fullerton’s words.

Concerning the NBM roof structure:
The roof structure is a gypsum panel construction on a metal framework – a more common construction in the 1930s.

[Note from Karen: The Douglas Avenue building was a make-work project during the Depression, the same as Saint John High School, which is mentioned later. Given that fact, one can understand why building materials might not have been the most durable. As rocks go, gypsum is known to be both soft and porous.]

Basically, the structure and the roof are the same thing, and the structure is failing – the panels are cracking and will eventually fail/fall in and the roof will collapse.

Given the weight, it is expected that it will collapse through one or more floors.

To replace the roof structure, you have to dismantle and rebuild it, which leaves it open to the elements.

I understand that Saint John High had the same construction and issue. They replaced the roof, or parts of it anyway, during the summer, when no one was there, and moved furniture around as required.

The same scenario does not work for the NBM – we do not have room to move the artifacts and specimens around, and the risk to everything while this work is being done – from the air, the rain and weather, fire, etc. is incredible.

Some have suggested doing it in pieces, moving some collections out and moving some around from place to place as the work is being done, but this is risking a lot … even moving collections is challenging and costly, and takes time. This would also mean that the NBM would have to shut down its other activities for several years while this process took place.

And at the end … if all went well, with no surprises in an old building … we would still have poor heating, poor ventilation, water leaks through the stonework, health and safety issues and severe over-crowding.

Ms. Fullerton also offered to send me photos of the roof, and extended an invitation for me to come see the roof situation for myself.

Being a freelance journalist, I went with notebook, pen, camera and tripod in tow.

As you look at the photos and read the information, remember that this is not just any old building.  There are people under that roof, working with countless artifacts of significant historic and cultural importance and varying types of materials requiring special environmental conditions for preservation.  (Textiles are much fussier than fossils when it comes to temperature and humidity, for example.)

This is why the New Brunswick Museum so urgently needs to build its expansion.  There is a great deal at risk here, and continued delays at City Council with regards to geotechnical testing are unhelpful, to put it mildly.

What is a “Collections Centre?”

If you haven’t had a chance to take advantage of the incredible behind-the-scenes tour opportunities at the NBM’s Collection Centre on Douglas Avenue, they will be holding more of them!

Pre-registration is required, but the tours are FREE! What a fabulous way to see all the ways a museum collection educates, informs, and astounds.

Call (506) 643-2349 to register for either the 1:30 PM or 6:30 PM tour to be held on Monday, March 16.