Cui Bono: Working towards more reciprocal community and volunteer relationships in archeological collections work

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Many Voices in the Repository: Community-Based Collections Work" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2022, staff in the Texas Historical Commission Historic Sites division received funding through an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Save America’s Treasures grant to develop a Community Curation program. This program is intended to enable the rehabilitation of legacy archeological collections through the creation of an outreach program focusing on training students, source communities, and volunteers in archeological collections processing methods. Work has begun to develop a curriculum and training series for volunteers intended minimize issues with long-term storage of collected artifacts and documentation. This ongoing project will work to establish a cohort of archeological collections volunteers who will raise the standard of current legacy archeological collections and work toward making these collections more organized, better identified, and more accessible. This paper examines the motivation, plans, and process for the Community Curation program, as well as address what has become one of our most challenging concerns – how do we make this program as beneficial to the participants as it is to us.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Many Voices in the Repository: Community-Based Collections Work

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51520