Wilmington, Deleware
Compact Art Racks Allow a Museum to Expand Acquisitions
A Delaware museum expands its collection without expanding its footprint.
The Delaware Art Museum had been in their expanded and renovated space for eight years. When the staff was moving back in after being in a temporary location during renovations, they decided to purchase an entirely new storage system to house their collections, which contained both works of art and library holdings.
At that time they reviewed three or four suppliers of museum quality shelving and storage solutions and ultimately selected Spacesaver product. Soon after they reopened, it became clear that even more space for collections was needed right away, due to additional donations.
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Download our Museum Lookbook
We offer a variety of options for museum storage. Download our lookbook to learn more.
For example, the museum was offered a collection of publisher’s bindings, which are rare decorative bindings that fit well with the rest of the museum’s collection. The curators decided that they would take these items whether or not they had the space to store them because they would be a valuable addition to the museum.
The donation was made up of almost 40 to 50 boxes of books that the museum didn’t have space for. For a few months the curators and librarians would have to access titles by searching through the many boxes. When they were done with that book, it would end up going back into the box for storage.
"The way the system is designed, it’s simple to add an additional shelf."
- Bruce Canter, Chief Operating Officer
Creative Solutions
“What we were looking for, was to add additional shelving units in the space that we already had,” said Bruce Canter, chief operating officer. He worked with Diversified Storage Solutions, Inc. (DSSI), the Authorized Spacesaver Representative in Delaware, to reconfigure the existing shelving and maximize the museum’s available space.
“The way the system is designed, it’s simple to add an additional shelf,” said Canter. “We changed the layout of the library stacks so we could accommodate additional library shelving, and if you’re not maxed out, you can easily add an additional rack system.”
A Trusted Partnership
Through smart space planning, the Delaware Art Museum was able to increase their storage capacity on-site, which prevented them from having to turn down additional donations and helped them avoid costly additions to the newly remodeled building.
“I don’t want to use anybody else; I want to use Spacesaver,” said Canter. “They are well known in the industry, they have great product and they know what they’re doing.”
