An employee who made many contributions to the museums on campus will be retiring from Iowa State this winter.

After 22 years of service, Mary Atherly will be retiring from the University Museums on Dec. 31.

Atherly, who has worked with University Museum since 1978, has made several significant contributions to the University Museums during her employment there, said Dana Michels, curator of art collections and exhibits for University Museums. These included developing a system of registering and cataloguing the museum’s permanent collection and writing an important 250-page paper about the museum.

“That document allowed her to obtain national museum accreditation,” Michels said. “This is a time-consuming process.”

In 1988, Atherly was promoted to the position of curator for the Farm House Museum and collections manager of the University Museum. While researching and planning exhibits are very time-consuming, Atherly coordinated them with skill. “It was easy,” she said. “Computers made the preparation tasks much easier.”

During the last 10 years, Atherly has devoted thousands of hours to the major conservation projects for both the Art on Campus Collection and the Farm House Museum.

Despite her busy schedule, Atherly was able to find time to research and write a book, “Farm House: College Farm to University Museum.” Before she leaves in December, Atherly said she will also be managing the museum’s first permanent collection handbook, available in January 2001.

While her work has kept her busy, Atherly said she has enjoyed it all. “It’s been a fantastic opportunity,” she said. “My boss always told me that whatever I wanted to do, I should go for it.”

While Atherly plans to continue her involvement with the museums as a volunteer, she said she is looking forward to some free time. “I plan on doing things that I haven’t had time to do before — research, write papers and play golf,” she said.