by Lynn Grant, Head Conservator

If you don’t work in the Museum or Library field, you may never heard the initials, ‘IMLS’. But to many in those fields, it’s a lifeline and important source of support and information. In 2019, the latest year with information, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded $223.5 million through grantmaking, research and policy development, to advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations. The Penn Museum has received support from the IMLS on many occasions.

In 2015/16, the Museum moved its Egyptian Collections off-site in order to protect it from vibrations associated with the construction of a large building right beside us. This gave us the opportunity to carry out an inventory and examine the objects in storage to determine which needed conservation. But it’s a huge project; we had originally believed the collection was 42,000 artifacts; it turned out to be more like 50,000. In order to fund such a massive undertaking, we break it down into manageable chunks. In 2019, the IMLS awarded the Museum $250,000 to fund the conservation of a group of Egyptian and Nubian coffins and related funerary goods. This enabled us to have two project conservators dedicated to this group of artifacts, as well hiring two conservation technicians to photograph items for the public database. Despite the pandemic, we’ve been working away at this since October 2019 and will complete the work by the end of September. Over the next few months, the project conservators will be sharing some of their work with you. Enjoy!