Although the museum will be closed, some visitors will be allowed to view the collection, which will be stored in Pratt Museum until it can be moved to the Natural History Museum. "As we are packing things up, access is going to become more and more restricted," said Crowley. "We are not restricting access to scholars or escorted visitors until we have to."
Kathleen Wellspring, the museum's collection manager, believes that preparedness is essential for a successful and safe move. "I think the biggest challenge is the organizational skills that are necessary," she said. "We don't want to lose or break a single object, which requires a lot of planning."
Director of the museum and Professor of Geology Peter Crowley thinks that the museum's dinosaur exhibit will be especially challenging to move. "Have you ever thought about moving a mastodon?" he asked. "A dinosaur doesn't just walk out the door on its own. It's large, heavy and fragile."
Wellspring plans to attend to the needs of each piece. "You have to have a plan for each individual collection. [The pieces] have different needs depending on the type of material," she said. "We are going to hire some workers who have the skills that are necessary to pack these. We are going to be hiring some professional exhibit dismantlers to take down some of our larger pieces."
The new building will allow the staff to create a completely new atmosphere in the museum. "You don't move a museum," said Crowley. "You have to start things new. In taking it apart, we essentially destroy the exhibits, not the artifacts that are part of the exhibits," said Crowley. "This is a huge opportunity to do something new and different."
President Anthony Marx is pleased that the legacy of the museum will be preserved. "The museum collection is one of the crown jewels of the College; it has great historical resonance. It would be a tragedy to see that collection disappear," he said. "It's continued and improved availability to students and the campus and the public are integral to those educational activities, in particular of the geology department."
Crowley is glad that the new museum will be more focused on the needs of students. "One of the things that we hope to do with the new museum is make it more a part of the students' experience," he said. "We are planning to have part of the museum as a study place." In addition, the new museum will have expanded hours that better accommodate students' schedules.
Jessica Driscoll '04, a geology major, is happy that the new building will be so useful to students and professors. "The building will provide amazing facilities for the faculty and future geology majors, which will allow Amherst geology to continue to be recognized as one of the strongest departments in the College," she said. "I hope that the novelty of the new building will attract even more people to take geology classes in an environment which will be ideal to teach and learn in."
Crowley is excited that the new building will allow for the permanent showcase of the dinosaur footprint exhibit. "One of the things that is going to be very different is that the dinosaur footprint collection is going to be on display all the time," he said.
Wellspring is looking forward to the increased safety and preservation that the new building will provide for the collection. "As a collections manager, I am most anticipating getting all of our collections into new storage facilities, cabinets that are better quality than we have currently, which allow us to monitor the collections more closely and keep them safer," she said.
Professor of Geology Tekla Harms echoes Wellspring's excitement about preserving the artifacts. "The whole geology department is involved and we are all very excited," she said. "We are happy that it will allow us to preserve and display our great specimens better."
The Natural History Museum will share its building with the geology department, while Pratt museum will be converted into a dormitory.