Safeguarding a Long Legacy: Preserving Jay C. Blaine’s Collections

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.

During his lifetime, Jay C. Blaine was a prolific avocational archaeologist, whose expertise professional and avocational archaeologists relied upon. Upon his passing at 99, Jay’s friends faced finding new homes for his collections. S. Alan Skinner, owner of AR Consultants, Inc., took on the responsibility of preserving Jay’s legacy for future researchers. Upon receiving temporary custody of Jay’s collections, Crawford reached out to repositories in Texas, California, and Nevada. This paper provides details on the planning and preparation of the Jay C. Blaine Memorial Collections for accession at Southern Methodist University and the Nevada State Museum. Additional portions of the collections are still being prepared for other repositories in Texas and Oklahoma. This paper provides an example of the management and care of legacy collections by a CRM firm. As academic institutions struggle with dwindling resources, CRM firms with experience in curation preparation can assist in the growing legacy collection management issue. While it is a heavy burden for firms to take on, working with these collections provides community outreach opportunities and the chance to preserve collections from their regions for future generations rather than allowing them to be discarded.

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): 51518