Handbook of Museum Technique

This Handbook has been prepared to meet a definite need for a reference book for teachers interested in building up museums. The teachers undergoing training every year at the Madras Museum in museum technique were thus responsible for the immediate stimulus for the preparation of this publication. We hope they and other teachers would find the Handbook useful. The annual training course in museum technique at the Madras Museum became possible od account of the interest taken by the Government of Madras and also by successive Directors of Public Instruction – Sri D. S. Reddi, Srimathi O. C. Srinivasan, Sri S. Govindarajalu Naidu and Sri N. D. Sundaravadivelu – in the educational activities of the Madras Government Museum. To all of them, we should like to express our grateful thanks. Though the Handbook was planned and its outline drawn up by the editors, the actual writing of the various sections of it has been the work of the curators of the scientific departments of the Museum. Originally the book was intended to serve the needs of the organizers of school museums, but as the writing progressed, we thought its scope could be somewhat enlarged so as to make it useful to curators of small museums without specialists on their staff to undertake conservation, etc. Knowing that there are a number of such museums in this country, we have very little doubt that museum curators will derive considerable benefit by using this Handbook”. – EDITORS’ NOTE.