Session 2: BUILDING A REGIONAL PARTNERSHIP NETWORK
Moderator, Ronald Kneebone, District Archeologist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque District

Ronald Kneebone

1. Goal of Corps: Get the cultural materials up to curation standards
   
   1. St. Louis District - Mandatory center for expertise for curation and NAGPRA
   2. Regulations are not intended to be a burden on museums - policy is intended to help get museums, and collections, up to standards. Need to systematically repackage collections
   3. Archives are a bigger issue than objects
      1. Expensive, must duplicate all archives
      2. Planning for digitalization/electronic recording
   4. Only cost effective way is to work with local communities, museums
   
   
2. Share responsibilities through partnerships
   
   1. Cooperative Agreement is preferred document for Corps, facilitates work with curation facilities
   2. Corps looks at cultural materials as a property issue based on ownership of land of origin. Come from private property - responsibility of the individual, come from the city - responsibility of the city, etc.
   3. Albuquerque District and most other Corps elements have contacted all institutions known to hold Corps's collections
      1. Written agreement with most
      2. Repackaged materials to current standards
      3. Computerized inventory of collections and records
   4. If your museum is planning to work with a federal agency
      1. Figure your costs (building, personnel, lights, charges to take care of a unit/box of curated work - the real costs associated with Curation)
      2. Figure out how to handle collections in a cost effective manner
      3. Outreach - How will your collections be used? Exhibit, education, study. Why hold collections if they are not going to be used for what they were intended? The different ways to make material available, in the most sensitive way possible. Not processing material just to sit on a shelf.

Brenda Dorr, Curator of Archeology
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico

1. 36 CFR 79 and NAGPRA - Legislation that changed Curation
   1. Prior to 1990 small museums were expected to do Curation on their own, take care of collections for free. Since 1990 there has been more Corps involvement.
   2. Corps interpretation prohibits payment of 1-time fee (would be pre-payment of services they may not need, or receive).
   3. Most collections come from contract firms
   
   
2. Maxwell Museum's collection
   1. 10,000 cubic feet of materials (bulk)
      1. 15,000 individually cataloged objects
      2. 1/3 of collection is federally owned
      3. 200 cubic feet of Corps material
   2. Fees
      1. $250 a box (.6 cubic feet)
      2. $35 a box annually
   3. Focus on keeping track of field records with collections (going back to contract firms to retrieve missing collections)
   4. Past priority: "exhibit quality" artifacts (dangerous to separate collections into more and less important)
   5. Used artifacts (Corps collections) in a graduate lithics class and also gave artifacts to a local dam with an exhibit center

Patricia Nietfeld, Curator of Archeological Research Collections, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, Museum of New Mexico

1. Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology's Collection
   1. Museum contains collections from 12,000 archeological sites
   2. 1/4 mile of associated records
   3. Fee is $225 per cubic foot box of curated work accession, $21/ft annual fee
   
   
2. Federal government involvement - museum took proactive role in contacting federal agencies beginning in 1989
   1. More focus on federal collections because of NAGPRA
      1. 34% of containers are federally-associated
      2. 27% of volume are federally-associated
      3. 32% of sites are federally-associated
      4. 65% of records are federally-associated
   2. ISTEA money used to microfilm Dept. of Transportation collection
   3. Corps has been most supportive - only federal agency that pays an annual fee
   4. Bureau of Land Management funded traveling exhibit - "People of the Mimbres". A researcher is at the museum one out of every three days (150 researchers used museum last year). Because of Corps involvement these collections are more accessible to the public, especially access to tribes, including tribal elders for religious purposes.
   5. Have also seen a high incidence of archeological vandalism in rural areas that have low access to their archeological collections

Jan Bernstein,Collections Manager and NAGPRA Coordinator, University of Denver Museum of Anthropology

• Local museum partnership with federal agencies. 165,000 archeological objects from 1920's to present. Majority of objects are from the high plains. $1000 a year budget. Museum Studies students work in the museum.
• $250 accession fee, $41 annual fee
• Denver University interaction with other museums has increased dramatically providing training opportunities for their students and making their skills available to other Corps facilities.

Discussion

• University of New Mexico: $250 a box is based on what market will bear, a negotiated rate, actual cost to University is higher. 32% overhead cost.
• Museums are becoming an economic enterprise, a museum's competitive aspect will increase. Need to talk about curation as an economic activity.
• Total costs to Corps have increased from $15,000 a year to $50,000 a year. Corps can not fund infrastructure improvement projects. Since there is a lack of decent storage space, with the closing down of military bases, could we use storage space in vacant buildings?
• Maxwell Museum: Except for Corps, difficult to count on annual funding from other agencies. Using Museum of New Mexico as an example: BLM funded specific projects beginning in 1992. BOR has provided $129,000 total; USFWS is cost sharing.