Washington State Curation Summit

Ellensburg, Washington

September 29, 2003

 

 

The Washington State Curation Summit, held in Ellensburg, Washington on September 29, 2003, gathered nearly 30 representatives from tribal nations, museums, universities, state and federal agencies to discuss current and future opportunities in curation. This document presents a summary of the session content and dialogue.

 

 

Contents

 

Welcome and Agenda Overview: Bill Smith & Mary Collins. 1

Case Study: Mary Collins, Laura Phillips & Paula Johnson. 1

Group Exercise: Steven Denton. 2

Action items. 2

Attendee List 4

Group Exercise Responses. 5

 

 

Dr. Bill Smith welcomed attendees and introduced Dr. Kathleen Barlow, the new chair of Central Washington University’s Department of Anthropology. Dr Barlow will be overseeing the move to new facilities in the next few years as well as updating the curation standards for the collections, so this meeting is very timely for the university.

 

Mary Collins also welcomed attendees and provided a brief overview of how this meeting came into being. Over the past few years, there have been numerous casual discussions about the emerging role of curation and cultural resource protection and management. While federal guidelines and processes exist, a number of individuals felt there were things that needed to be addressed locally in the Northwest.

 

This past May a few representatives, primarily from universities, met and discussed moving forward together. The first objective was to expand participants for another meeting. In looking at the list of participants for this meeting, there is a much broader spectrum of attendees with representatives from federal, state, and tribal agencies as well as private consulting firms. This is an opportunity to work together and share ideas.

 

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Mary Collins, Laura Phillips and Paula Johnson reviewed their action items from the previous meeting. Each was tasked to identify additional stakeholders in the process. All lists were shared. Any additions/corrections should be sent to Laura Phillips: lphill@u.washington.edu.

 

Mary’s list encompassed agencies beyond the Washington State borde, as many agencies have responsibilities across state borders.

 

Laura focused on small museums and historical societies; over 450 in the state. There is growing frustration about the lack of central knowledge regarding collection locations. A long-term goal is to compile a master list of collections for the state.

 

Paula reviewed curation guidelines for nine other states as part of a curation course she taught this past summer. Of the nine reviewed, two were completely vague, with curation guidelines of the remaining seven ranging from two pages to 38 pages. Paula’s class compared and contrasted policies and identified what was standard and what was special that might be applicable to Washington State. Things covered include artifact labeling, storage fees, and collection culling.

 

Attendees agreed that standard curation guidelines would benefit all parties and contract firms would be able to include guidelines in contracts up front. A federal law passed in 1990 regulates collections made under federal auspices; there is no equivalent for Washington State. One of the strongest pieces included in the federal guidelines is the clear message that federal agencies retain the responsibility for collections on their land and have the responsibility to provide financial support. This guideline enables federal agencies the authority to make curation a separate request in their budgets.

 

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Steven Denton led a group exercise to determine central themes attendees are interested in discussing further.

 

Identified themes (in order of importance)

• Curation guidelines
• Funding issues
• Orphan collections and collection location
• Partnerships
• Training
• Access to collections
• Housing older collections
• Outliers
  • Laws
  • OAHP guidance
  • Security and environmental controls

 

In the following discussion, several issues were raised including distribution of information. From a tribal point of view, confidentiality is important. Potting continues to be a major issue. “Grave literature should not be available to the public” said Donna Hogerhuis - Cultural Specialist, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. Donna citied the Umatilla schoolchildren education programs as examples of shielding sensitive information while still educating. Mary Collins suggested defining categories of information, from most confidential to least confidential. There may be instances in which even the most sensitive information needs to be accessible.

 

Lewis Malatare, Yakama, suggested creating two partnerships; eastern and western. This was tried 17 years ago to quell the potters, but didn’t take off. Today’s conference is a new opportunity to put general locks in place. Peter Lape agreed, noting site security is a fundamental issue needing to be solved with more input from tribes.

 

Stephenie Kramer, Assistant State Archaeologist, Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP), announced that the OAHP rules are opening up shortly for change and this is an opportunity to talk about curation guidelines and building them into the rules, providing better standards in the permitting path. The timeline is nebulous, but the rules have been drafted, reviewed by state attorneys and are now making their way through the agency. The modified rules are part of the Washington State Administrative Code, so would be enforceable.

 

 

General action items (unassigned):

• Letter to board of Washington Museum Association. Possible presentation in June annual meeting.
• Participation in national curation meeting by Department of Transportation
• Prepare statement to take to next Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians meeting.
• Contact Bambi Cross with the National THPO for spreading word among tribal museums and cultural centers.
• Contact Gary Shalleyo, Heritage Resource Commission for aid in curation guidelines.

 

 

Assigned action items:

• Stephenie Kramer to look into getting a headcount to put together a curation database. The group agreed it made sense for OAHP to maintain the list and provide a central request location. Grants through Muckleshoot and Tulalip tribes as well as funding from other represented institutions may offset costs.
• Gay Hunter to modify the guidelines for the park service and share a draft via email. People will be asked to review and come to the next meeting with comments.
• David Powell to share his large email list of all tribal contacts in the state to help spread the word.
• Donna Hogerhuis to check availability of the Muckleshoot’s brand-new facility for the next meeting tentatively scheduled for the week of January 12.
• Peter Lape to set up a web site with all the information; curation guidelines for review, next meeting times, meeting minutes, etc.

 

The next meeting will address curation guidelines and a presentation by Stephenie Kramer to address funding a new position.

 

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• Marilyn Malatare - Curator/Manager, Yakama Nation Museum.
• Lewis Malatare - Cultural Resource Specialist, Yakama Nation.
• Peter Lape – Curator of Archaeology, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
• Donna Hogerhuis - Cultural Specialist, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe
• Lourdes De Leon - Professor of Forensic Archaeology and NAGPRA Chair, Central Washington University
• Bill Smith - Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, Central Washington University
• Deborah Osterberg - Museum Curator, Mount Rainier National Park
• Earl Miller - Archaeologist
• Addie Wyena – Collections Trainee, Wanapum Heritage Center
• Angela Neller – Curator, Wanapum Heritage Center
• Rhonda Foster - Director of Cultural Resource Department/THPO
• Larry Ross - Cultural Resource Specialist, Squaxin Island Tribe
• Mark DeLeon - Archaeologist, Bureau of Reclamation
• Cindy Sulenes Farr - NAGPRA Coordinator, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission
• Kelly Cahill - Museum Curator, North Cascades National Park & Ebey’s Landing
• Megon Noble - Assistant Collections Manager/NAGPRA Coordinator, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
• Steven Denton - Program Manager, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
• Paula Johnson - Owner, Paragon Research Associates, Inc.
• Mary Collins - Associate Director, Washington State University Museum of Anthropology 
• David Powell - Archaeologist, Yakama Nation
• Stephenie Kramer – Assistant State Archaeologist, Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP)
• Laura Phillips – Collections Manager, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
• Maureen Newman - Lab Director, Archeological Investigations Northwest, Inc.
• Gay Hunter, Museum Curator, Olympic National Park.
• Shauna Hansen - Engineer, Tacoma Public Works Department
• Lynette Miller – Curator, Washington State Historical Society
• Melissa McFadden – Engineer, Tacoma Public Works Department

 

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Curation Guidelines

• How to get cataloging commitments completed for university projects/cooperative agreements with universities?
• Ability of Public agencies to identify curation needs and to locate appropriate curation facilities.
• Excavators should make advance contact with repository.
• Clear guidelines for where archaeological, both prehistoric and historic, will be accepted in the State of Washington; and clear preparation guides and costs.
• Are there accepted, universal standards for curation of archaeological material?
• Need standard state guidelines for curation of archy collections.
• We need state/regional standards for collections and facilities.
• Curation guidelines.
• Lack of standard curation guidelines.
• What guidelines must be followed to meet curation requirements in Washington State?
• Establish curation standards that would serve as an effective tool to protect and preserve and make collections accessible that would work for bath small and large repositories/museums.
• Set priorities or guidelines to help agencies, CRM firms, etc. determine the most appropriate facility for collections.
• What curation facilities are available in the Puget Sound Area?
• How would standards be enforced?
• Who would standards apply to? Only museums or to places like county historical societies too?
• Lack of information to accompany collections - inhibits processing.
• Distribution of research reports.
• Paper/documentation conservation.
• 2. Information: a. digital records; b. condition assessment; c. images; d. web-sharing
• Project Director – who was in charge?
• Name of original project – highway improvement, dam.
• Preserving the artifacts for future analyses opportunities, such as DNA; blood residue analysis; obsidian sourcing. This means not marking catalog numbers on stone tools or obsidian and not washing them.
• Finding the right place for collections to be stored for the use by students and the public. They don’t do anyone good boxed in a basement.

 

Curation Costs

• Cost of curation and storage with budget reductions.
• What is standards cost for curation (per box of artifacts)?
• Funding for long-term curation.
• Cost/expenses associated with curation. How do we fund it?
• We need adequate money support from state and federal agencies and private folks, where appropriate.
• Cost.
• 1. Funding: a. staffing, supplies; b. backlog treatment; c. training, meetings; d. current technology.
• Fees: Is trend towards yearly fees or one-time curation fees? High fees may be fostering a non-collection policy by federal agencies that are worried about paying for long-term curation.
• Funding for collection rehabilitation and facility upgrades.
• Lack of funds/time to catalog collections in museum database.
• How do we pay for it all?
• Curation costs?! (Lack of).

 

Orphaned Collections/Collection Location

• Orphan collections
• We need centralization of collection information (i.e. which collections are where).
• Need to be able to find out where collections reside (central database at OAHP?).
• Clark County – Many archaeology collections are being generated by professional excavations on private land due to the CL Co. ordinance. The property owners don’t want to pay for curation, so they are opting to keep the collections or donate to a local museum. What are some other options? Will the Burke accept a donated collection with no funds? Tribal museums?
• What will happen to collections sitting in consultants or professors offices whey they retire, etc? I worry about this being an increasingly frequent problem.
• Survey of where collections are; what collections are there; who is responsible for these collections.
• Access to collections for research and some central location or source to identify where collections for sites in Washington are being curated.
• How to deal with “orphaned” collections at risk (private, older CRM collections).
• Collections from a specific region are scattered in facilities/firms across the state making research harder for students/tribes.

 

Partnership

• 3. Partnership: a. incorporate curation into project work; b. research ecosystems and cultural groups across artificial boundaries.
• Lack of communication with all parties involved, especially tribes.
• Native American views on curation.
• How can different interests (tribal, govt., academic) be balanced in workable policy that preserves collections for future generations?
• Tribes request a larger presence/voice in the curation of collections associated with the Tribe.
• Tribal consultation and sensitivity training is necessity for curation staff.

 

Training

• Help with tracking items (i.e. database, reporting, condition assessment).
• Education of archaeologists about curation.
• Artifacts, proper care.
• Wet site artifacts (wood, fiber, and basketry), museum skill level, proper stabilization facilities, and long-term curation?
• Training in local/regional areas for archaeology collection (lack of money).

 

Access

• 1. Research oriented; 2. User friendly – easy to use; 3. Publications (all of these need a good staff).
• Convenience of storage facilities.
• Access to collections: Who? What qualifications?

 

Rehousing

• Rehouse old collections.
• Address old collections that have not been properly curated.

 

Miscellaneous

• Security and environmental controls.
• OAHP guidance.
• Laws.
• Original location of object.

 

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