To all of the archaeologists out there, especially those in
colleges and universities with large (and separated from the
usual museum) or small anthropology and archaeology
collections: what percentage of the people hired to care
for those objects have actually been trained in
museum collections management and preventive conservation
techniques? I don't mean people who are archaeologists
or anthropologists and have been curating the collections by
default (or whatever) for x-number of years--but people who
are trained to do museum work, with a museum studies degree
or through various extensive training workshops, etc.
And to the relevant museums, what percentage of the people
working in the collections aspect of your institution are
archaeologists by training, still working in the field, and
hired to foster the communication between archaeologists and
curators/collections managers?
It seems to me that this collaboration between professions
could easily at least BEGIN to bridge the communications
gap. We all just need to get over ourselves and try
something different...a new paradigm in curation (did I
actually say paradigm??)
Jennifer Schansberg
National Park Service, NAGPRA program intern
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 202-343-1882
forwarded by:
William H. Adams
P.O. Box 1177
Philomath, OR 97370-1177 USA
503-929-3102 -3264 fax
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