Southern Methodist University: An Example of a Cooperative Agreement
Sue E. Linder-Linsley, Director, Collections Management, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University
Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at SMU has a large anthropology collection of 24,000 cubic feet. They met with the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss a joint effort to create a mutually beneficial and feasible plan to care for the collection. In 1988, they established a collections management policy. All of this was prior to 36 CFR79. June 12, 1990 the Institute and Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement that the Corps would assist in paying for past curation of the collection. The initial investment would have been $642,000, but they settled for $365,000. The Ft. Worth office stepped in declaring the agreement to be illegal and said that there was no justification for the Corps to pay for past curation services. The Institute is continuing to work with St. Louis' Corps of Engineers for guidance and to resolve the situation. ISEM is skeptical regarding the value of spending time and resources to enter into agreements that are backed out of and stresses the need to insist on an approval of all work orders and budgets.
The Central Sierra Me-Wuk Committee: NAGPRA Compliance Project
Reba Fuller, NAGPRA Project Director, Central Sierra Me-Wuk and Historic Preservation Committee
Cultural affiliation is a tough situation because of the complexity of California Native Americans. 80-120 thousand Indian people are not members of federally recognized tribes. If a tribe is not federally recognized, partnerships based on NAGPRA are more difficult.
The Central Sierra Me-Wuk Cultural and Historic Preservation Committee (a coalition of five Sierran Me-Wuk Tribes) was one of the forty-one recipients of the National Park Service NAGPRA Grants to Indian Tribes and Museums. The money has been used to create and adopt policies for the compliance of NAGPRA, for the care and treatment of collections, and for classes specifically designed to educate California Natives with NAGPRA compliance. 80% of Me-wuk collections are in federal institutions, and 70% of their collections have no documentation to establish provenance. They continue to seek funding to train Indians in consultation and to enhance the status of collections information. Consultation constitutes the exchange of information about the impact of cultural tradition or heritage. There is a need to create open doors of communication, trust, and dignity and respect for cultural heritage. NAGPRA is moving at a slow pace. Federal agencies need to have a positive attitude. Agencies/museums have become aware of the spiritual need to have our human remains and cultural items returned to the appropriate people.
What is the National Archives and What Can It Do for You?
Waverly Lowell, Director, National Archives - Pacific Sierra Region, San Bruno, CA
The National Archives is legally responsible for managing the records of the federal government. 1934 - National Archives was established
1949 - Became a part of the General Services Administration
1985 - Became an independent agencyThe National Archives forms partnerships with federal agencies
- To help with records management, retention and disposal
- To help find records
- To provide general advice (legal questions, pest management, and storage)
- To provide research and reference (brochures and web site)
- To help with non-federal archives holdings
When items are stored at the Federal Record Center, they belong to the agency that created it. After the disposition the records are open to the public. After the transfer, descriptions, preservation, conservation are performed.
The Regional Archives System works actively with scholars, professionals from museums, historical societies, colleges and universities, and cultural resource managers from federal agencies. Regional archives staff have engaged in cooperative projects that include exhibits, collection documentation, preservation consultation, research projects, publications, joint appraisal, and proper placement of historical records. Its holdings are extremely diverse, and represent many different kinds of federal records.
Challenges and Accomplishments Within the BIA Environment
Cora L. Jones, Deputy Area Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Aberdeen Area Office, Aberdeen, SD
Museum property in BIA generated as a result of gifts from Indian people to the Agency . To raise consciousness with respect to these collections and to bring people with different specializations, BIA formed a Quality Improvement Team in 1993
The product produced was "Treasures in Our Midst" posters and brochures
The purpose was to account for and preserve BIA collections. This included inventories, cataloging, and conservation.
The QIT accomplished the following:
- Identified a mission statement for the Aberdeen area office
- Reported to the Deputy Commissioner
- Established ground rules for conducting meetings and facilitating information exchange
- Made training packets for NAGPRA inventory compliance
- Developed long range plans to identify such issues as off-site storage, Indian Studies, Indian museum education, Indian college
- Formed co-operative agreements
This team worked for BIA to foster productive partnerships
Federal Curation in a University Setting: A Cost-Effective Example from Mississippi
John W. O'Hear, Curator of North American Archeology, Cobb Institute, Mississippi State University
At the Cobb Institute, archeological collections had accumulated without funding to care for them, and without a management plan. As a result of concern for curation of collections from a large federal waterway project, an agreement between Mississippi State University and the Mobile District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concentrated on bringing the curation facility up to standard. This joint funding constructed a new building of 4,400 square feet, the Cobb Institute of Archeology, for $65,000 dollars. Next, a management system of curation and inventory was created to deal with collections procedures, records, management, computerization and future financing. A curation fund was established in 1986.
The curation system retains the provenance research value of the collections and provides opportunities for public outreach. The Cobb Institute currently curates over 5,000 cubic feet of archeological collections and associated records, including 4,200 cubic feet of federal collections. The point was made that Co-operative arrangements between federal agencies and universities are the best curation alternative for many federal collections, while caution was urged against entering into curation as a "for-profit" business venture.