diadrasis

When last summer  a member of our staff returning from a training in ICCROM brought the idea of discovering and disseminating the storage REORG  reorganization methodology develop by ICCROM and UNESCO, we must admit that we were a but skeptical. Yes we already have started with small museums in our seminars last years in Gatzea, but storage of museums?

And furthermore as often friends asked, why should you have a concise methodology developed from two big institutions for some back scene rooms of a museum? Well after a wonderful training for trainers held in Belgrade, and a volunteer research action in the museum of political exiles Ai Stratis here in Athens I can tell you why! Because the storage, is the room we tend to forget, and still is the heartbeat of our museum. Especially nowadays with the change of perception on Museums. Museums are not a stock-still exposition of our collection, but should be made from  rotating items and when possible items that can challenge and interact with the visitors. To achieve that you need an organized and functioning storage, otherwise is like not having a storage at all.

Ok, you could agree on this point, but again why a methodology? Why can you not go on your own and do some clean up? Well it is simple, because storage reorganization is definitely not a charming work – and therefore it is usually postponed to never, often began and left in the middle- which I can assure you it is even worst! It is exactly like the storage in your house, you keep promising that next Sunday you will clean it, but instead you keep adding things and then another Sunday when they call you for a last minute ride, you have to refuse because there is no physical way of reaching your bicycle! Worst case scenario is that you get so upset with it that you simply want t throw away everything, something that you definitely can not do in a Museum storage!

The brilliance of the REORG methodology, is that it short of reminds you of all the procedures you have to do from the survey till implementation, in a very logical and structured way. All the little thinks you tend to forget when rushing through objects, or when faking a reorganization with a nice frontal view but many hidden objects in ‘
UFO’ boxes behind! All the logical thinking of first observing, then documenting, then planning, then implementing. The basic and simple questions you have to ask, does my storage meet the storage criteria? And if not (almost certain) what can I do to meet most of them? The underlining that you can not start any kind of inventory if you have not a organised space. And of course the responsibility and necessity of selection, you have to make choices as by conserving everything you damage everything!

After all REORG is mind tool, it helps you think in a different way and most importantly leads you to move the importance of the how question in the why! Understanding why you want to do any action will lead you in how to do it…and that is what we will keep from this experience, hoping that we will repeat it in the future in other Museums as well. How? Well wait for our why response sometime soon!