Joy Tahan Ruddell has over twenty-five years of collections and registration experience.  Prior to independent consulting, Joy coordinated the registration department at a large California museum which included insurance, loans, acquisitions, collections access and research, policy and procedure development and management, and intellectual property management. Working with staff museum-wide she developed programs that helped the community engage with collections. Joy has extensive experience with major collections projects including: inventories, collections moves, project management, acquisition and deaccession activities, NAGPRA projects, grant writing, insurance and risk management, and loan processing and organization.

In addition to her collections consulting, Joy works with CatalogIt, an innovative collections management system for documenting the Story of Things where she coordinates with the Co-Founders of CatalogIt to ensure the product stays up to date with all current museum professional practices.  She also creates content to help museum and personal users more effectively utilize the CMS to create thorough and comprehensive documentation and authors articles on current museum professional practice.

Joy is Alum of the John F. Kennedy Museum Studies Program and served as Adjunct Faculty teaching collections management courses. Joy currently serves on the Advisory Board for The Marks Project (an online dictionary of American ceramics, 1946 onward). She served on the Board of the California Associations of Museums (CAM), California Historic Records Advisory Board, and served as President of the Board of Directors of the Camron-Stanford House Museum in Oakland.

Joy specializes in helping museums build capacity through creative problem solving and determining scalable solutions. Extensive knowledge and advanced understanding of national standards allows her to assist with virtually any collections conundrum.

Click here to view Joy’s résumé

Are you interested in hearing from Joy about her career as a museum registrar and her transition to consulting? Click this link to hear an podcast interview published  by Kelly Bennett and Art Pro Net:  APN Blog

Select alphabetical listing of clients and consultations: 

• American Bookbinders Museum, San Francisco, California
• Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
• California Historical Society, San Francisco, California
• Camron Stanford House Museum, Oakland, California
• CatalogIt, (Collections Management Software), Oakland, California
• di Rosa, Napa, California
• Eastern Sierra Museum, Independence, California
• Evelyn I. Carlson Historical Collection, NDGW, San Francisco, California
• Hayward Area Historical Society, Hayward, California
• Isleton Brannan-Andrus Historical Society, Isleton, California
• The Jay DeFeo Foundation, Berkeley, California
• Little Manila Foundation, Stockton, California
• Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, California
• Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
• Paul Wonner and William Theophilus Brown Estate, San Francisco, California
• Piedmont Historical Society, Piedmont, California
• Tate Britain, London, England
• UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California
• University Art Gallery, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California

Current references available upon request. Please email joy@joytahanruddell.com more information.