The Archaeological Repository of Colorado State University: Expanding Opportunities for Accessibility and Research

Summary

This is an abstract from the "How to Conduct Museum Research and Recent Research Findings in Museum Collections: Posters in Honor of Terry Childs" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Colorado State University is one of many universities and museums with extensive collections of archaeological material. Each institution has unique and noteworthy collections with material specific to the region and to the research interests of faculty and curators. The opportunities for research are abundant, as many collections remain untouched since original investigation. However, most researchers and students are unaware of the treasures that lie within our repositories. How do we increase the visibility and accessibility of these collections? How do we encourage future research? The Department of Anthropology at CSU recently began to address this issue. First, the Department hired an Archaeological Collections Coordinator to manage the organization, preservation, access, and outreach of their collections. Organization is key to accessibility and having a person dedicated to this task is crucial. The other piece to the puzzle is having a champion for the collection. Ideally, this champion (professor and/or curator) will have in-depth knowledge of the material, work in the region, and encourage others to use the collections. CSU is beginning to test this model and we will share our challenges and successes to date and highlight several of the research opportunities within our own collection.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• How to Conduct Museum Research and Recent Research Findings in Museum Collections: Posters in Honor of Terry Childs   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24685