Yarmouth County Museum and Archives on Collins St. (photo from the museum)
Many museums are preparing to open their doors to visitors, including the Yarmouth County Museum and Archives on Collins St.
Director-Curator Nadine Gates says they could have opened the archives section a little while ago but the decided to wait until they could open both.
“We were waiting for the Association of Nova Scotia Museums and the Nova Scotia Museum to meet with Dr. Strang and to develop protocols that museums could follow…because you can’t really disinfect an artifact, so we needed to figure out the best way to proceed and each museum is different.”
She says their main priority was the health and safety of their volunteers at the front desk.
“The hold up was the production of a spit screen for three sections of that front desk reception area. Once that was in place, we went through the museum, we’ve put arrows on the floor for a foot path, we’ve got limited access at the moment.”
Only the main floor of the church section is open for now.
“The preservation wing and the education wing are closed, as is the lower exhibit space in the church, so it is limited. The exhibits are roped off to limit people going and touching, that kind of thing. The biggest hold up for us was waiting for the production of our spit screen and, now that that’s in place, we’re ready to open.”
The museum will open tomorrow (Tuesday) at 1pm for seniors and those who need help getting around and at 2pm for the general public.
Due to the protocols, the museum will also use their winter hours, 2-5pm, Tuesday to Saturday, for the foreseeable future.
She notes that many small museums can’t open for financial reasons, while others are operating on a shoestring budget and are in need of donations from the public or sales from their gift shops to continue existing.
