SP0229: Maude Abbot Medical Museum

The objective of the project is:

• To mount an exhibit related to environmental issues and re-use of material at McGill and Quebec society at large. The most elaborate exhibit will be part of the Museum’s contribution to McGill’s 200th anniversary celebration. It will include artifacts such as lung specimens, radiographs, and minerals that illustrate the effects of potentially harmful inorganic dusts, such as silica, asbestos, and coal. Mining has been and continues to be an important part of the Quebec economy, and pulmonary disease resulting from workplace exposure can have important consequences to health. Potential exposure to these dusts during construction projects at McGill and the ways in which this can be avoided is another reason for exhibiting and discussing the subject. The exhibit will also be a vehicle to help generate a deeper understanding of general environmental factors that impact health.

• To mount 3 smaller displays that showcase innovation in re-use of material/space in the Strathcona Anatomy Building.

• To develop a model that incorporates measures of sustainability for the conservation and management of department collections at McGill. The material in the MAMM collection, like that in many of the other McGill department collections, has survived “by neglect”. This material is part of McGill’s community assets that need maintenance and investment to sustain its very existence and value and significance for future generations. The model developed will address the 2 major challenges for sustainable practices in the management of the smaller departmental collections: (1) allocation (and lack) of resources, (2) outreach measures (use of collections). The model will be published.

In order to carry out these projects, we need to have a better understanding of the extent and nature of the museum's collection as well as an ability to safely store it and easily find material within it. Resources from the SPF will be used in 2 ways.
(1) The creation of 2 Work Study positions for 4 months in the summer 2020. The objective is to complete the inventory (accession/deaccession) of all the material in the museum storage room. The students will triage all material and ensure that biological and non-biological material has appropriate labeling, packing and storage. Prevention of improper disposal of items will be paramount.
(2) McGill Facilities costs to move and install discarded McGill library shelving in the storage room. The shelving will be repurposed for secure storage of artifacts. The Office of the Building Director (Medicine) and Facility project managers have agreed to work with us to do this. We are also working with the Faculty of Medicine MEDIT to create a customized collection management interface software (stored on a McGill server, rather than a local hard drive). The database interface will be ready for testing in Fall 2019 and completed by Winter 2020.