Aside from the tragic fire at the National Museum of Brazil, this past week brought some good news in the museum field. A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland as Dorothy in the movie “The Wizard of Oz” was recovered after being stolen in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The FBI has been involved in the case and recovered the shoes in a sting operation this summer. A…
When I was a kid, I had a set of Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books for Young Readers. I liked the look of the set on my bookshelf and enjoyed making sure they were in numbered order, but I don’t think I ever read more than one story out of them (“Madame Curie,” I believe) during my entire childhood. I finally got rid of these books because they always bothered me. I knew they contained…
As a person working in a local museum who has had disaster preparation and recovery training, I think a lot about the safety of our collections. There are items in our museum that cannot be replaced because they are one-of-a-kind. Two Bandolier Bags & a Ledger The two Ojibwe bandolier bags are such items. One of them was gifted by Chief Shab-osh-kung to Nathan Richardson for Nate’s legal work against timber thieves on behalf of…