The numbers never lie

I just did a little bit of math out of curiosity. First, I figured out how many artifacts we've entered into the collections database in the past 2.5 years I've been at the Museum. If you're wondering, it's 2589.

Doing a bit of research a while back, I read somewhere that it takes on average about 3 hours per artifact to completely document it-- catalogue, number, photograph, put in storage, and enter information into the database. 2589 artifacts at 3 hours each equals 7767 hours of work.

Now, here's the interesting thing. 7767 hours of work equals 194.175 weeks of work. I've been at the Museum for 2.5 years. That's 116 weeks. I've had two 6-month collections interns. That's an additional 48 weeks, for a total of 164, 40-hour weeks. We're still 30.175 hours short.

Of course, I do not spend all my time working on documenting artifacts. I conduct research, work with the volunteers, help with special events, design posters and postcards, and write and design exhibits, just to name a few things. And, the interns-- they didn't spend all of their 24 weeks with us working just on collections.

It's the volunteers! Those wonderful collections volunteers who come in every other Tuesday and catalogue each and every artifact. The math proves it: we couldn't do it without them!

So, here's a treat for everyone from the collections. It's a photograph of a postcard in our collection. You'll notice the building-- it's the Museum, today. I couldn't resist sharing this. It's just too funny. The card belonged to a woman who served as the Vice President of Farmers State Bank, when it used this building for their place of business. I swear-- it's too funny! (If you're curious-- 26 years is 1248 weeks...that's 49920 hours. If we worked that long, we could document almost 17000 artifacts!)