Standing in a sparkling, white, well-lit room, Ohio History Connection Curator of Natural History David Dyer holds a mastodon tooth.
It’s about eight inches long and has several ridges that look like mountain peaks.
“And this is a single tooth. So sometimes people see that. And I think it's four teeth or two teeth, but that's one individual tooth,” Dyer said. “It gives you an idea of how big their mouths are too.”
Dyer pulled the tooth out of a sleek, metal shelving unit designed to hold many natural history artifacts. The room is temperature- and humidity controlled. Dyer said it’s nothing like the old warehouse where part of the natural history collection has been kept up to this point.
That building wasn’t designed for long-term storage, he said.
“So, it's kind of quite dark and has been pretty old and has a leaky roof. And sometimes we get animals in the building that shouldn't be there,” Dyer said.
But soon, Dyer, along with much of the rest of Ohio History Connection’s curator staff, will work from a new $22 million facility just north of Ohio History Center off 17th Avenue. The building is built with best practices and staff mental health in mind and has a national accreditation for its green energy-efficient design.
It was funded through state capital budget appropriations that set aside $17 million for design and construction and around $5 million for shelving, furniture and security.
About half of the volume of Ohio History Connection’s roughly 1.8 million items will move into the 16,500 square feet of storage space. The building also has offices.
It’s laid out around a wide hallway that moves from a covered dock area through specialized spaces for processing, preserving and storing artifacts. The lights turn on and off automatically to reduce damage to collection items.
Becky Odom, manager of the curatorial department, said the building follows the path of the staff.
“We actually created stories for the architecture firms explaining what curators, collections managers and registrars do is often a little bit difficult and what our day typically looks like,” Odom said.
Midway down the hall is a natural history lab that can be used for taxidermy. It’s outfitted with stainless steel tables and has its own ventilation system, “so that any of the smells from in here do not end up in the rest of the building,” Odom said.
That room has two sub-rooms: a freeze dryer to preserve specimens like snakes and amphibians, and a space for Ohio History Connection’s dermestid beetle colony.
“They are flesh eating beetles. And so, we like them to have their own separate space just in case they ever get out,” Odom said lightly. “We use them to clean bones.”
“We preserve these collections because we want people to use them. They are important."- Becky Odom, manager of curatorial department at Ohio History Connection
The beetles have not moved in yet – but they will, along with just about all of OHC’s natural history collection, about half of its historic collection and plenty of books and files.
Textiles and furniture from the historic collection will occupy the far end of the building. It’s filled with high-density, movable shelves that fit everything from furniture to ceramics and clothing.
Ulysses S. Grant’s ornately carved, red-velvet upholstered camp chair was tucked on a large shelf.
“I love this camp chair because most camp chairs, when you look in silverware, photographs, you see this little folding like canvas and wood stools. And then Grant has this chair which is gothic revival, heavily carved, a little bit dainty,” Odom said. “So, in terms of, traipsing it around in a horse- or mule-drawn wagon, this was tricky to bring from place to place.”
In a set of rolling shelves for long garments, history curator Marlise Schoeny showed off a coat that belonged to Grace Heck Faust, one of the first women to graduate from The Ohio State University’s law school.
“This is from 1978, when she was working as a lawyer at a firm. And it is from Rike-Kumler in Dayton, commonly known as Rike’s for those of us who grew up in Dayton,” Schoeny said.
Schoeny said one piece of clothing can tell many stories, from the fashion of the time, to socio-economic trends, and the history of the people who made and wore the garment.
“And to me, it's just like a window to try to hook people, to get them to learn a little bit more about the past,” Schoeny said.
"There’s been, you know, questions circulating in the field, you know, do you need to keep the real things? And the answer is yes."- Becky Odom, manager of the curatorial department at Ohio History Connection
Odom says these “objects of history” help us understand how we got to where we are.
“There’s been, you know, questions circulating in the field, you know, do you need to keep the real things? And the answer is yes because technology changes,” Odom said.
Odom said scientists can learn more from objects now than before. Technology, like 3D scanning, is making collections more accessible to everyone around the world, but you have to start with the real object.
“We preserve these collections because we want people to use them. They are important. We can learn so much from them,” Odom said.
Ohio History Connection’s new Collections Care Center has a photography studio with an overhead camera to catalogue items. Once the collections are moved in, anyone can view items in person with an appointment.
Ohio History Connection started its archeology collection in 1885 and its history collection in 1901. Some of the items were collected by staff, but many were donated by members of the public.
Ohio History Connection currently has several storage spaces for its vast collection. Odom said OHC will keep those so it can continue to grow its collection. The new facility was also designed with the potential to be expanded in the future.
The building is part of Ohio History Connection's larger Campus 2.OH revitalization project, which also includes a renovation of the Ohio Village.
