Jackson Group maintains a newly created facility known as the Jackson Group Anthropological Repository (JGAR), at the Jackson complex in Richmond, KY. Located off of I-75 the facility is 18 miles south from I-64, and 25 miles from the Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, KY. Easy access allows for collections of all sizes to be brought in and loaned out conveniently. The facility meets National Parks Service Guidelines as outlined in the National Park Service Museum Handbook (NPSMH) (1990, rev. 2006), and pursuant to regulations 36 CFR 79 and ER/EP 1130-2-540. The JGAR facility encompasses a 6,036 ft² portion of building.
Within the 6,036 ft² building is a 1,700 ft² climate controlled, locked, fire suppressed “Main Collections Storage”. With 12 ft ceilings, the Main Collections space has full availability of 20,400 cubic feet of space. The entire building rests on a concrete pad, and this room is windowless with only a single locked ingress from the rest of the facility and one building-code mandated egress-only fire door. Off of the Main Collections room is a separate “Special Collections Storage”. Special Collections is located in a 400 ft² room with a separate lock from the Main Collections space. Special Collections holds high valuable materials, as well as holds ceremonial collections, human remains, and NAGPRA materials. This room is also climate controlled, as well as fire suppressed. The room is windowless with only one door for ingress which leads from the Main Collections Space. With 12 ft ceilings, the Special Collections room has 4,800 cubic feet of available space.
The “Documents Room” is located adjacent to the Special Collections and the Main Collections rooms, with a sole lockable door leading to the Main Collections Room. The 405 ft² room is not only temperature and humidity controlled, but is also fireproof. In addition to the current cabinets the room is large enough to support map cases, book shelves and other forms of print documents.
To ensure the safety of the collections in the Main and Special Collections, and Documents Room, JGAR has a separate HVAC system from the rest of the building to properly regulate the appropriate temperature and humidity to the specs out lined in the JGAR Management and Curation Guidebook, and the NPSMH. The building is protected with an alarm system which if activated will be directed to police and/or fire dispatchers.
As new collections are brought into JGAR they undergo a set process, outlined in the JGAR Guidebook. But regardless of how they are processed prior to being held in the Main or Special Collections, all new collections are retained in quarantine for a set period of time dependent on the requirements outlined in JGAR Guidebook. This additional step and extra space helps prevent outside contaminants from entering long-term storage, and allows for the monitoring and stabilization of materials. The “New Collections Quarantine” room is 216 ft² and its sole use is for storage. Adjacent to the New Collections Quarantine, is the “General Curation Room” and the “Curation Laboratory”.
The Curation Laboratory is a 561 ft² space that contains the staff, tools, and work areas to stabilize artifacts, repair, maintain collections, and as collections are re-accessioned from on loan, are observed for any new damage. Any threatened collections are conserved in this space by JGAR conservators. The General Curation Room is an all-purpose use room reserved for activities such as cataloguing, research space for visiting researchers, packing and shipping, et cetera. This 712 ft² space can also be used for additional lab space if necessary. Two (2) small rooms, approximately 100 ft² apiece, serve as temporary work stations, or a server room if a dedicated server is needed. The additional spaces in JGAR are 479 ft² of cubical space, and a 156 ft² Laboratory Director’s office.
The JGAR physical collections space is a large facility with up-to-date systems to regulate the collections and maintain the collections so that they are current with federal collections guidelines. The facility has the added benefit of having space to grow as collections are added. JGAR occupies less than half of a currently unoccupied building, and in the event the facility and artifact storage out grows the building, the building lies on 88 acres of undeveloped land. The building could easily be renovated to add additional storage and/or working spaces, or additional buildings may be constructed if the current storage reaches capacity.
