TOTAL NUMBER OF RESPONSES: 50
General Comments (not applying to questions)
- Primary recommendation: don=t
have numbers of simultaneous sessions, better to have larger sessions where
more people hear the same thing and discuss in longer question periods.
Keep this open not a venue for
talks to add papers to resumes.
- Good job! Thanks Ron!
- More opportunities for
dialogue needed in sessions. The luncheon was a place where this did happen.
Perhaps
a second lunch would have been valuable. I expected reports back from the
pre-conference meetings. A
message board might have been valuable at the registration table. All group
presentations of model
databases or repository standards would have been good. The AAmerican
Strategy@
presentation was an
example of this.
- The Native American participants
needed more of a forum to discuss their issues and to present these issues
and problem resolutions to NAGPRA. These need to be shared regularly with
non-native participants. The
hotel staff presenters and steering committee were very helpful and extremely
supportive. Thanks.
- Suggest greater effort
for more tribal participation, region or nationwide.
- This was a self-selected
group. Need to have relevant personnel from agencies to meet with private
sector
counterparts.
- The conference seemed to
run reasonably smoothly once it started, although the frequent switching
of session
meeting rooms (from what was printed in the schedule) was a problem. Audio-visual
equipment worked very
well, which is atypical of most conferences I=ve
attended. Ultimately, the conference sponsors are to blame
for allowing a key staff member's acceptance of a new job to greatly disrupt
pre-conference planning,
particularly as is related to
notifying conference presenters of basic things like acceptance of their
abstracts,
etc. I also want to comment
on two basic communication problems I experienced with the conference
organizers. 1) My telephone,
telefax and written inquiries about the conference were customarily ignored.
This rude and unprofessional
behavior is inexcusable: again the conference sponsors must ultimately
take
the blame for these
problems. 2) Length of presentations and requested formats for presentation
summaries
(for the Web, etc.)
should not be revised in mid-stream. This reflects a lack of organization,
and is a further
burden on presenters.
- Problems: 1.) Workshop
on Monday canceled. 2.) Missing speakers on topics I wanted to hear 3.)
Lack of
discussion of state level partnerships w/federal agencies (state archaeologists,
SHPs, state museums, state
archaeological organizations) who are important stake holders in cultural
resource management 4.) Lack of
regional diversity.
- Note on conference mgmt:
I would have liked to have received some confirmation of my registration
approx. 2
weeks before. I had nothing to indicate that my faxed registration had
been received, nor did I have updated
information on the time and location of the pre-conference workshops. I
am probably the only insecure,
neurotic, and weird conference participant who mentions this, but it would
have been nice.
- It became painfully obvious
that the host institution wasn=t
prepared to commit the staff and leadership to
organize and direct a conference of this type. Many participants commented
on the lack of planning and
marketing of what could have been an even greater conference. The folded
plain sheet of paper to announce
the conference was embarrassing compared to the effort of the folks at
the Berkeley Conference. The simple
inability to produce professional looking signboards for each of the conference
rooms, cutting up the
program and taping it to a piece of cardboard, certainly did not engender
a sense of confidence in the skills
and interest level of the host institution. The staffing change midway
through the conference preparation
showed a lack of urgency or concern by the director. Kessler Randall did
a tremendous job of picking up the
ball. Fortunately the meetings themselves were wonderful and productive.
- Thank you to all those
involved for the time, thought and planning. This is definitely an important
conference.
It should be expanded to hear more voices of indigenous people. It is their
history and legacy after all.
Did the conference meet your overall
expectations?
49 Responses to this question
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4.75 |
Comments:
- Sessions were scheduled
with overlapping topics at the same time disallowing attendance of ones
of interest.
-Initial contact with me
as a speaker was very late. The first letter I received was Oct 20th. I
would have
appreciated receiving a preliminary program and conference information
sooner. More exhibits in the foyer
outside the meeting rooms would have been useful - in fact, I could have
brought one myself. I think it=s
a
wonderful idea to put the paper summaries on the web.
- Excellent learning opportunity.
The wealth of knowledge that the speakers as well as the participants was
well
received and extremely beneficial.
- Excellent opportunities
to network; good workshops (although somewhat weighted to archaeology).
- Yes - actually it was much
more useful and relevant to my work than I was expecting.
- Thank you. I learned
a lot and have a great deal of good information to take back to the office
to help me in my
job. However, compared with other conferences things seemed a little disorganized
w/ local arrangements,
registration desk, signage, etc.
- Not enough rep. and sessions
from specific fed agencies w/in Dept. of Defense and SI.
- This was my first conference
and it met up to most of the expectations I had. I did expect more interactive
sharing between participants, like the roundtable activity.
- Most of the information
was not new and had hoped to learn of developing issues in curation particularly
those
discussed in the National Archaeological Collections Management mini-conference.
- Ample opportunities to
discuss issues with individual participants/ attendees.
- Not enough on Natural History
Collections (w/o archeology).
- Not exactly. I thought
there would be more nuts-and-bolts kinds of information disseminated.
- Paleo and archeo. presentations
should have been integrated for better interchange of ideas.
- Very stimulating, useful
disagreement.
- I would be interested in
hearing more about how people have creatively solved curation problems...
partnerships, limited funding, cooperative agreements . All these subjects
were presented but I would
appreciated more emphasis on this.
- There was little if no
national /WASO presentation regarding NPS issues. Although I greatly appreciated
the
information shared by NPS site personnel, I think a national perspective
could have provided clarifications
on many issues (i.e. de-accessions, cataloging standards, research, etc.)
to attending NPS staff as well as
other Fed and non-Fed participants. Discouraging....
- Wanted more time to discuss
- The compartmentalization
of the sessions did not allow for exchange between paleo, insects/animals,
native
American and history/ archaeology. This should be integrated by topical
issues.
- I was hoping for more sessions
on conservation and collections management.
- Great opportunity to network.
- Wednesday luncheon was
particularly useful.
- Exceeded.
- The reception at SD Nat.
Hist. Mus was very nice. Food throughout the conference was great. I=m
guessing
that you had lots of financial support as the costs were very reasonable.
Did the conference meet its goals? (as
stated in the preliminary program)
45 responses to this question
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4.2 |
Comments:
- The Marriott facilities and particularly the staff
were outstanding, courteous, helpful, efficient. Equipment
worked, refreshments
were excellent. AV-volunteer in my session was very helpful (Liz). The
opportunity to
interact with
professionals from other fields (biology, paleontology etc.) was very productive
- to know that
we share many
of the same issues - concerns (I=m
an archeologist).
- Yes, the conference agenda
was well organized and provided the optimum learning opportunities.
- Given the initial poor
planning it is a miracle it worked as well as it did.
- There were a large number
of sessions where expected speakers were unable to attend, unfortunately
in many
cases a replacement was not found to present the announced topic. Next
time have a qualified back-up or
more.
- This was a very good opportunity
to meet main players and resources - excellent job, esp. Cindy=s
effort.
- I suggest discussing next
time the benefits to the public for our collections how do we communicate
to the
public? and why? We think our stuff is important but does the public?
- I am not sure the true
policy-makers are here to listen we need DOD/GS-IS level folks to attend
and participate.
- Partnerships and DOD/BOR
national inventory reports.
- Round table discussions
were not extremely productive.
- We should start looking
for more success stories to share and build on.
- I do believe session with
speakers from Native American Nations would assist in the overall understanding
of
archaeological collections and world views of the items concerned.
Which session or sessions do you believe will be the most useful to you? Please Explain.
-Collections management related,
plenary session, breakouts.
- Partnership Case Studies
- I was a participant in this session, and it was the most useful for me
because this is
my area of concern in terms of this subject. I appreciate the opportunity
to represent my university-based
organization at the conference. The most interesting session for me as
the history Collections & other
Archival Resources. Perhaps future conferences could solicit a geographically
broader group of
participants. The western states were heavily represented. The midwest
and southeast much less so.
- Ordnance
- 1) Cost of Curation 2)
Collections Standards, Accreditation and Resource Sharing.
- Biodiversity
- Pre-conference workshop
ACreating
and Managing Repositories for Federal Collections@,
good organization,
good speakers, good handouts, good discussions, w/mix of agency and non
agency staff representing a
variety of disciplines. Good meeting room and limited to 30 participants.
- What was described in sessions
4 Ord and Weap coll. was not actually presented.
- None in particular stands
out as most useful. Preservation Conservation was very interesting.
- DOD, Arch. Col Management
and Col. Standards.
- Roundtable discussions.
Excellent (needed more time), plenary (onset) provided a good overview
of following
sessions. (unplanned)
- Native American Caucus
w/ Elizabeth Sackler.
- Wed noon lunch session
very useful. Someone needs to maintain address/interest email list.
- Native American Caucus
- Biodiversity value of collections
- The session on strategic
planning was inspiring. There was too much preaching to the converted,
need to
address issues of how to go about change. Present ways in which others
nave been successful in getting
funds and/ or recognition for their collections.
- Round table sessions will
be the most useful opportunity to exchange information. Learn from others
and build
toward solutions.
- I attended portions of
almost every session so really can=t
identify one that was most useful. All of the
presentations I heard had useful information for my own work. In this sense
I considered all sessions to be
valuable and relevant.
- More Paleo focus.
- The accountability of the
collections is of utmost importance to me which included the sharing of
information
already gathered (let=s
quit re-inventing the wheel!)
- Accountability for collections
& stolen cultural property issues.
- Missing session Asell@
agencies and public about benefits. More beyond compliance.
- Stolen cultural properties,
Accountability for collections, Working lunch, NAGPRA session: Kumeyaay.
There
is still a chasm between Fed agencies and Tribes about what NAGPRA means.
- Case studies in partnering
- Any session that offered
examples and support for common concerns and needs.
- Cost of Curation and Stolen
Cultural Property
- Collections Standards,
declining with impact to federal regulations.
- Historical collections,
similar to the one I work with (TVA).
- I do not understand this
question. These numbers are reflective of the program.
- Curation Fee, encouragement
that we can indeed obtain funds to curate federal collections.
- Session IV on Thursday
morning; and Accountability for Collections: Conservation.
- Accountability for Collections
- Curation fees and Stolen
property
- General overview papers
particularly useful - need more analysis of reasons for range in costs
- this may appear
and even be removed by next conference in two years.
- Cost of curation
- After the NAGPRA session
I met with people from tribes and nations represented, Ad hoc highly informative
and productive.
Opportunities for Federally-Associated
Collections: Opening Remarks
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 42
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 182 | Valuable | 4 | 16 | 14 | 5 | 3 | 1 | Useless | 4.23 |
| 141 | Interesting | 2 | 11 | 13 | 6 | Uninteresting | 4.27 | ||
| 135 | Excellent Overall | 3 | 10 | 12 | 5 | 1 | Poor Overall | 4.22 |
Strategic Planning and Stewardship
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 13
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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Avg |
| 65 | Valuable | 3 | 7 | 3 | Useless | 5 | |||
| 65 | Interesting | 4 | 5 | 4 | Uninteresting | 5 | |||
| 65 | Excellent Overall | 3 | 7 | 3 | Poor Overall | 5 |
Accountability for Collections
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 14
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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Avg |
| 68 | Valuable | 2 | 10 | 1 | Useless | 4.85 | |||
| 65 | Interesting | 3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | Uninteresting | 4.64 | ||
| 66 | Excellent Overall | 3 | 6 | 4 | 1 | Poor Overall | 4.71 |
NAGPRA
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 7
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 29 | Valuable | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Useless | 4.14 | |
| 32 | Interesting | 2 | 3 | Uninteresting | 5.33 | ||||
| 30 | Excellent Overall | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Poor Overall | 4.29 |
The Internet, Communications Technology and Collections
Maximum Number of Responses for this session: 6
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 27 | Valuable | 4 | 1 | 1 | Useless | 4.5 | |||
| 29 | Interesting | 1 | 4 | 1 | Uninteresting | 4.83 | |||
| 27 | Excellent Overall | 4 | 1 | 1 | Poor Overall | 4.5 |
Zoology and Paleontology Collections Issues
Maximum Number of Responses for this session: 11
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 57 | Valuable | 3 | 7 | 1 | Useless | 5.18 | |||
| 47 | Interesting | 5 | 1 | 3 | Uninteresting | 5.22 | |||
| 47 | Excellent Overall | 3 | 5 | 1 | Poor Overall | 5.22 |
Partnership Case Studies
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 23
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 108 | Valuable | 3 | 12 | 6 | 2 | Useless | 4.70 | ||
| 113 | Interesting | 7 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Uninteresting | 4.91 | |
| 85 | Excellent Overall | 3 | 8 | 6 | 1 | Poor Overall | 4.72 |
Dealing with the Costs of Curation: Past,
Present and Future
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 19
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 95 | Valuable | 7 | 9 | Useless | 5.28 | ||||
| 93 | Interesting | 6 | 9 | 3 | Uninteresting | 5.17 | |||
| 98 | Excellent Overall | 5 | 12 | 2 | Poor Overall | 5.16 |
Biodiversity Value of Federal Collections
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 9
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 44 | Valuable | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Useless | 4.89 | ||
| 47 | Interesting | 5 | 1 | 3 | Uninteresting | 5.22 | |||
| 45 | Excellent Overall | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | Poor Overall | 5 |
Department of Defense: Archaeological Collections Management
Maximum Number of Responses for this session: 13
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 64 | Valuable | 3 | 6 | 4 | Useless | 4.92 | |||
| 60 | Interesting | 2 | 5 | 5 | 1 | Uninteresting | 4.62 | ||
| 54 | Excellent Overall | 3 | 4 | 4 | Poor Overall | 4.91 |
Ordnance and Weaponry Collections
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 9
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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Avg |
| 45 | Valuable | 2 | 5 | 2 | Useless | 5 | |||
| 44 | Interesting | 1 | 6 | 2 | Uninteresting | 4.89 | |||
| 44 | Excellent Overall | 1 | 6 | 2 | Poor Overall | 4.89 |
Stolen Cultural Property Issues
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 17
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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| 89 | Valuable | 5 | 11 | 1 | Useless | 5.23 | |||
| 83 | Interesting | 6 | 9 | 2 | Uninteresting | 4.88 | |||
| 89 | Excellent Overall | 6 | 9 | 2 | Poor Overall | 5.23 |
History Collections and Other Archival
Resources
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 7
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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Avg |
| 37 | Valuable | 2 | 5 | Useless | 5.29 | ||||
| 38 | Interesting | 3 | 4 | Uninteresting | 5.43 | ||||
| 38 | Excellent Overall | 3 | 4 | Poor Overall | 5.43 |
Collections Standards
Maximum Number of Responses for this session: 13
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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Avg |
| 56 | Valuable | 2 | 5 | 4 | 1 | Useless | 4.66 | ||
| 58 | Interesting | 1 | 9 | 1 | 1 | Uninteresting | 4.83 | ||
| 58 | Excellent Overall | 1 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Poor Overall | 4.46 |
Round Table Discussions
Maximum Number of Responses for this session: 29
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value |
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Avg |
| 117 | Valuable | 8 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 1 | Useless | 4.03 |
| 123 | Interesting | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Uninteresting | 4.24 |
| 113 | Excellent Overall | 6 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 2 | Poor Overall | 4.04 |
Closing Session
Maximum Number of Responses
for this session: 16
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each value |
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Avg |
| 51 | Valuable | 4 | 10 | 1 | 1 | Useless | 4.63 | ||
| 53 | Interesting | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 | Uninteresting | 4.82 | ||
| 53 | Excellent Overall | 5 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Poor Overall | 4.42 |
Pre-Conference Workshops
Creating and Managing Repositories for
Federally-Associated Collections
Maximum Number of Responses
for this Workshop: 9
| Total Points | Number of Responses for each Value | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Avg. | |
| 4 |