It has been a busy week for the Heritage Center as we tackled the on-site portion of our collections appraisal by Hindman Appraisals. This assessment of our Heritage Hall and Archival Center collections, as well as certain artworks around the Nazareth campus, will help ensure that we are taking the best possible care of these incredible collections.

Larry Housley and Leonard Horton work to remove paintings from the walls in the Motherhouse so the appraisal team can assess them “in the round”.

Michael Smith, Heritage Hall Coordinator, has spent the past year diligently inventorying the Heritage Hall collection and select pieces around the campus. On Monday, using Michael’s inventory, Larry and Leonard from Housekeeping helped us remove paintings from the walls of the Motherhouse and O’Connell Hall to give the appraisers easier access for appraisal “in the round”. Some of our most precious collection items from the Archival Center Collection Storage Room were also pulled out and arranged on tables for individual assessment.

Late Monday afternoon, the team from Hindman – Yarden, Elena, LaGina, Angela, and Mike – arrived at Nazareth. They wasted no time getting to work on Tuesday morning!

LaGina, a member of the Hindman Appraisals team, reviewing materials in the Archival Center.

After a few days of working with the appraisal team to photograph and record data about collection items, the on-site portion of the appraisal is officially concluded. We eagerly await the results of the research that the team will now conduct into everything they saw while they were here!

This has been a huge project for which we have been preparing for over a year. The entire Heritage Center team has worked hard to ensure the collections were inventoried, that we found a great company to work with, and that everything was prepared for this project. We are thrilled with how everything has gone so far! We appreciate your understanding while the Heritage Center has been closed for this important project. We will be open again in the afternoon on Tuesday, June 24th.

Elena and Mike, members of the Hindman Appraisals team, assess a bust of Mother Columba Carroll in Heritage Hall.