Count down to occupancy

 

Construction is finally winding down. All that remains for the outside of the building is a rail for the wheelchair ramp and some landscaping, which will commence the first full week of September when summer temperatures have leveled off. There are still a few finishing touches to be done inside the facility - wall paneling to be installed, doors to be stained, baseboards finished. We are excited to start the installation of our RFID tracking system in the fall, supplied by OCR. During the weekend of September 16-18th, the Museum of Ontario Archaeology will be hosting their annual Harvest Festival. The event coincides with Doors Open London, in which both the museum and the Sustainable Archaeology Center will open their doors to the public during that weekend.

Boxes & shelves

 

This photo demonstrates how the boxes will be stored in the facility - single stacked, 2 deep. The boxes in the photo are the size and colour of those that will be used by the facility. Our first box shipment is expected by the end of October.

Floors sealed

 

Shelving complete - floors in  the facility sealed. We're down to the final stages of construction now as the general contractor works through their checklist to completion. We anticipate our occupancy permit by next week and look forward to moving into the facility. Now we can focus our attention to the development of the database and our collections policy.

GPR at work at Uncle Tom's Cabin

The facility's ground penetrating radar will be put to work in Dresden next week at Uncle Tom's Cabin historic site. The work was scheduled for Thursday, July 28th but had to be rescheduled due to inclement weather. The Sustainable Archaeology geophysics team will be on site Tuesday, August 2 and Wednesday, August 3rd, weather permitting. The project has been picked up by several media sources, including Western News, CTV and CP24.

Museum link

 

The flooring is down, the walls are up and painted and the link is complete between the museum and the Sustainable Archaeology facility. From museum you can see straight down the hallway into the shelving room. The entrance to the new facility is just to the right at the top of the ramp/stairs.

Yesterday, the Canadian Federal Minister of Health, Ms. Leona Aglukkaq, visited the museum to make a funding announcement (although not related to the facility). With all of the news media on site for the day for the high profile occasion, we were happy the facility was in an advanced stage of completion!

Access Ramp

 

It's been a very busy month! Most of the work is complete inside the new facility. Spacesaver is putting the final touches on the mobile shelving install, the floor is (mostly) down, the walls painted, the wood ceiling in the Visual Imaging lab is going up, the millwork is complete, the network/ethernet wiring has been installed. In other words - it's time to start shopping for furniture!

Earlier this month, Sustainable Archaeology hosted a workshop for end users and regulators in the Cultural Resource Management industry. The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the industry formally to the facility, and to generate discussion and feedback on collections management practices that would guide the facility in generating Best Practice policies for Ontario archaeological collections. Watch this space, our web page and ArchNotes for a summary of the day's discussions. We are interested in generating feedback - which we'll welcome on this Blog as well as over email or standard mail.

 

Magnetic Gradiometer

 

Learning how to operate the magnetic gradiometer (Bartington Instruments) on campus at the University of Western Ontario.