|
Aviation Museums June 6, 2002 Recently I quit my job, put out a resume and got hired immediately. Well, not exactly, but at age seventy it's fun to think of it that way. Here's what happened: I was on my way to work at the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Nebraska one morning and found myself in that funky Monday Morning Feeling, of "Geez! I hate going to work." WHAT? "This is fun, this is what you like, this is voluntary," I told myself. But the reality of it was that in many ways it wasn't fun. The museum is a .com – commercial rather than non-profit (.org), so it is run by people with dollar signs stenciled on their glasses. As volunteers we were micro-managed and asked not to make waves that would in any way imperil the job of our boss. So I looked around to see what else was available, and dropped in at the Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenfield, IA. In this small museum I saw a collection of about 1000 books, none of which had been inventoried, catalogued or properly shelved. So I asked them if they would like me to do it for them. The Director was flabbergasted! "You mean you’ll do it for FREE???" She is the only full time employee and hadn't the time, resources or knowledge to do the job so she was overjoyed to have me work there. So I am now the Library Volunteer and have free rein to set up the whole library system myself in any manner I choose. WOW! What a difference from being low man on the micro-managed totem pole! I go in on Mondays, work four hours logging the books on a form that I designed, then take the data home and spend another four hours or so researching the books on the Web to fill in the missing data and appraise their value. It is a long commute to work, Greenfield being about one hundred miles east of me, but between Glenwood and Greenfield are about five other museums, three antique malls, thirty antique stores, many interesting restaurants, several state parks, and a dozen or so wildlife areas, so the trip out and back fills the day with fun and adventure. In order to do the job right, I am visiting all the aviation museums I can to see how they handle their books, and am working on setting up a network of museum librarians so we can communicate with each other and swap information and books. On my Memorial Day trip I visited several museums along the way. My first stop was at the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum in Rantoul, Illinois. This was a special visit, because the museum is the remnants of the library of the now-defunct Chanute Air Force Base. I had been to Chanute AFB on three occasions over the years attending various weather schools, so the place was filled with nostalgia. This museum was already catalogued and shelved by the retired Base Historian, so it was in good shape, and I was pleased to see that they were using several library techniques that I had started at Greenfield when I set up my system. A small, specialized library can benefit from a modified form of classifying books without having to use the long ten or more digits of the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal systems. At the Strategic Air and Space Museum we shelved the books by the Library of Congress numbers like universities do, but I felt that the majority of the users of our smaller library would be more comfortable with the old Dewey Decimal system, so I am using that. Next stop was the United States Air Force Museum at Dayton Ohio. This is the largest military aviation museum, and is very touristy and commercial, complete with an IMAX theater. There is no library available for the general public. All books are kept on the AF Base, and you have to have security access and an appointment to get to them. Bummer! Then on to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in Rhinebeck, New York. This is a fun place. It is the gathering spot of all the old-time planes with the pilots dressed up like the Red Baron in their WWI bi-planes. The airport barely qualifies for that title – it is a short grass strip on a very hilly terrain. The bleachers set up along the runway for the big annual fly-in are rough planks laid on cement blocks. But it is a fun event – I have seen it on TV and would love to attend (along with a comfortable padded "bleachers seat" that I keep in the car for the grand-kids baseball games.) The museum itself is in three old hangars, and is suffering from neglect, but has some interesting displays of old vintage aircraft. They have no library, and no serious intentions of establishing one - "Maybe someday when we get time and money" was the answer to my query. On the way home I stopped in at Lexington, Kentucky to visit the Aviation Museum of Kentucky. Here they had about a thousand books in the process of being catalogued. The librarian wasn’t there, but the staff let me in to see the books and see how they were handling them. An interesting innovation here is the use of space-saver shelves that roll on wheels so many shelves can be stored in a small space. The museum is in a large hangar, competing for space with the aircraft in the process of restoration, so it is difficult to find your way through in a logical manner, even with the help of some very talkative volunteer guides. Back in Iowa my first stop was to the Airpower Museum at the Antique Airfield west of Ottumwa (the home of Radar on the MASH TV series). This is a good-sized museum, but in very dark, dank and dusty hangars. It almost seems as if they reluctantly allow you to interrupt their day by visiting the museum. But they do have a good library – several thousand books, pamphlets and multi-media items, all housed in a separate building. It will be a great place to read and research books when they get them all catalogued and shelved A final stop south of Des Moines for the National Balloon Museum. Here is a fine collection of balloon history and memorabilia in a comfortable, well lit and decorated museum with a major expansion taking place that will about double the available space. But they have not catalogued and displayed their books. I think they need a nudge, and I am an experienced nudger. Now I will collect al the data I uncovered and start communicating with the various librarians so we can collectively better serve the public in educating them on the history of aviation. |
| Gene's Page / Who's Who / Muse Home |