Featured News: A Ball Jar Collection At Ball State University

Historic Ball Jar Collection Finds New Home at Ball State University | Ball State University

I guess there is a collector & collection for everything out there.

I wonder what types of considerations have to be made when a university takes in a large and bulky collection such as this.

 

Well this seems targeted to an area and school that had a close connection to the family who ran that business so it makes sense. I wonder how they will display it, in part or whole, or just keep in archives. Usually a grant or gift of some kind has to be bestowed to create a display space or building, so there might be fund raising of some type to make up the difference.

 

Yep Joe-There's a star in every category/genre !
https://auction.gregspurgeon.com/Ev...ODINES-AIR-TIGHT-FRUIT-JAR-Rare-PINT-Orig-CAP

 

!

 

Also 19th century food jars w/ screw clamp lids/closures (like antique laboratory specimen jars) can be pricey.

 

Appropriate storage would be one of the main things. I see that Ball State University does have a museum of art (with a large collection of art originally from the Ball family). Although the jars are artifact more than art, perhaps there is room to store them there? But who knows... I did look around for any more information on the donation of the collection of jars, but just found items from earlier this year when the donation was announced.

BTW, I never knew where the name of the university came from. Never searched for it before!

 

I wonder if there has to be an archivist/collection manager position to manage the jars? I assume interns/student workers could get some of the tasks done like creating an inventory of what they got and photographing everything for said inventory.

 

It always makes me happy when a big collection is kept together, but especially when it’s going somewhere more than a couple people will be able to see it

 

Ehhh universities are all a little different depending on funding and funding for higher ed is way wayyyyy down. Like, criminally down. So I highly doubt they will have a position for this.

They will probably make it the additional purview of someone at their museum, even though it's not art, OR they will add it to whomever is head of their history or anthropology/archeology departments. I've been in the archival areas of three different schools. My private college had a staff member of the library who was head of special gifts like this, and they were only stored and not on display. The two others were archeology departments at state universities and those were overseen by professors and student interns/grad students. Again, not displayed, barely catalogued (ie "Box #123 Sherds or Box #23 Drawings), and not photographed.

 

Agree 100%- anything deemed culturally insignificant by the current powers that be will be deemed a waste of governmental funds and cut.