Every afternoon at 3pm is when we deliver and pick up books, mail, donations and other items from other places in the museum. This task requires a lot of knowledge and wayfinding. Occasionally, you may need to make a checklist of pickups and drop-offs to make sure that you get to everything and can plan your route to be most efficient.
Here are the things you will need before you go on your delivery route:
1. A cart (preferably non-squeaky)
2. Books from the delivery shelf
3. Any notes about pickups from the plastic tray near the delivery shelf
4. Outgoing mail from the library office
5. Any empty mail bins from the library office.
Now that you have everything, this would be a good time to make a list of the order in which you will accomplish your tasks. As you will see from the attached map, many of the curatorial and administrative offices we deliver to are in the Ferguson wing. However, certain curatorial departments are located off of the galleries they curate. Those are:
Prints & Drawings (near the library toward the north end of the Michigan Avenue Building)
Photography (lower level of Michigan Ave Building)
Architecture & Design (lower level of Michigan Ave Building - down the hall from Photo)
Textiles (On the lower level of McKinlock Court - through the Alsdorf galleries and down the stairs)
These departments have doorbells for use in gaining entry. You will be able to enter all other departments freely.
The Mail Center
The Mail Center is in the northernmost area of the basement of the Ferguson Wing (below the staff entrance). All mail and shipments for the museum comes through them. Because Mail Center employees also have duties as security officers, the Mail Center’s hours are 10am-4pm. During 3pm deliveries, it is a good idea to take care of the Mail Center visit early so that you don’t risk arriving too late in case of an early closure. As with the outgoing ILL drop-off at 11am, you may be asked to bring back several shipments so bringing a cart down with you is a good idea.
Pickup Donations from Director’s Office
On Fridays, there is a delivery task that is not included in the other days’ errands. That is to go to the director’s office on the 1st floor of Ferguson and pick up all of the donations they’ve received that week. Because the director’s office receives so many donations, it is important that we do this errand every week without fail. Bringing a spare plastic mail bin on the cart to hold the donations is a good idea since many of them will be magazines, mailers and items of a more ephemeral nature.