Queensland Museum & Community Collections

It has been a long road for the volunteers at Pioneer Valley Museum since a leak during the rain event in February forced them to close and empty their museum (see Water damage at Pioneer Valley Museum). But they have tirelessly persisted, and today they will open their doors to the public for the first time.

The volunteers have approached their new display layout with a focus on telling significant regional stories. The result is a well-structured, informative, uncluttered and engaging display space. Every surface has been painstakingly cleaned, and each showcase has been relined using archival blue board and calico giving them a bright crisp look. New labels have been written and produced on foam core.

One of the challenges for the new display was to find a practical solution for the layout of the egg collection. Due to the fragile nature of the items we wanted to create a display that would minimise handling and allow the eggs to easily be transferred to storage if necessary without having to repack them. The solution – a box with two removable layers of foam to allow the eggs to sit clear of the box for display, then be recessed into the box by removing a layer of foam for storage. Each egg had its own foam nest cut for it. This design means the volunteers can also swap out different egg trays for display.

First a box that would fit the available display space had to be made.

Foam was cut to fit the box and handles added to allow easy removal.

The bottom foam layer and handles in place.

The layout of the eggs was planned on the top layer of foam and individual nests cut for each egg.

The top layer of foam was covered in a stretch cotton, and openings were cut in the cotton layer to allow the eggs to rest in their nests, which had been padded with dacron.

Eggs in place.

The eggs are well recessed so they can’t move or roll off.

The final result.

The volunteers at Pioneer Valley Museum have achieved a remarkable amount in a short space of time. They have packed down and stored their entire museum, negotiated cleaning and repairs to their damaged building, spent countless hours and elbow grease cleaning walls and relining showcases, and redesigned and redeveloped their displays. They are all probably too tired to enjoy their success at the moment, but I hope they have the opportunity to savour it as they welcome visitors to their wonderfully refreshed museum in the coming weeks.