John Samuel Jacobs

Associate Registrar for Collections, the Andy Warhol Museum @The Andy Warhol Museum

Pittsburgh, PA, US

Duties: • Process rare, primary source materials in a museum setting for cataloguing, imaging, exhibition and preservation purposes. • Properly handle, catalogue and house a wide variety of art and archival media including printed formats, works on paper, photographic materials, magnetic media, textiles, and a wide variety of decorative arts and collectibles. • Catalogue art and archival collections in the museum’s collection management database (TMS) by using a combination of library, archives, and museum standards and nomenclature and by assigning attributes and metadata. • Perform surveys of the archival collections and author processing plans for improving its arrangement, classification and preservation. • Reconcile archival collections by arranging materials into series within functional or organizational categories in alphabetical, chronological, numerical, and/or subject order. • Retrieve items from archives storage by using objects lists for upcoming exhibitions or loans and return items to storage following de-installations of exhibitions or returns of loans. • Complete condition reports and photo-documentation of collection items. • Apply professional knowledge of the physical properties and characteristics of various art and archival media to select, create and implement appropriate housing and storage for long-term preservation. Key Contributions: • Processed, digitized and catalogued a complete Andy Warhol Time Capsule (over 350 catalogue records) in support of a Warhol Retrospective at the National Gallery of Art. • Designed and performed a preservation survey of the archival collections and presented a statistical breakdown of preservation challenges using predictive analysis techniques. • Received extensive training and hands-on experience in the identification, mitigation and treatment of pest and biological infestations.