Ms. Karen Karn is The Bead Museum collections manager. She and a team of volunteers keep the collections archived, inventoried, and in order. They were hard at work the day we visited. It will be their job to keep the museum contents in order through whatever transitions unfold over the coming months.

I am very sorry to see this institution close. For bead collectors, we have for 24 years been able to explain that beads are so very important, there is a museum just for beads! It has validated our pursuit. It is truly a sad event that first the Bead Museum in Washington D.C. closed in 2008, and now, on March 12, 2011, we will lose The Bead Museum in Glendale as well. We hope that the collection can remain intact and on public display wherever it's destination may be.