A courier weatches a main deck airline pallet being loaded.

In many circumstances it is standard practice for a representative of the lending Museum to act as courier during the movement of objects between locations. A courier is responsible for the safety of the object during all stages of transport between venues and must supervise the unpacking, or packing, installation and check the objects against condition reports provided by conservators at the point of origin.

With the development of more sophisticated conservation and packing techniques, objects that would have previously not traveled, due to conservation issues, size or complexity of packing or installation, can now be included in exhibitions. This brings new challenges for the museum courier. In some situations there can be an advantage in sending either a conservator or a technician as that courier.

TEAM OF COURIERS
With these challenging objects and short installation/de-installation windows at some venues, it may be necessary to put a team of couriers together. This team could comprise the project coordinator, a curator, a conservatorand a technician. The advantage of including a conservator and a technician is that they can be selected from staff who have worked on the conservation, installation/de-installation, and packing of the objects, and so bring with them valuable knowledge of specific objects.

Courier seat in an art truck

All couriers must be trained to make decisions under difficult circumstances and to ensure that all movements are carefully controlled.

Couriers need to be equipped with detailed conservation reports, packing notes and photographs and will usually be briefed by the Museum Packing and Transport team on how to unpack and repack an object. It is vital that objects be repacked in exactly the same way each time, to ensure that the object’s condition remained stable.

Acting as a courier also provides opportunities to share information with technical staff from other museums - to discuss, develop and improve methods.