Collections Needs Assessment at the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum

FAIN: PG-233636-16

Nuweetooun School (Exeter, RI 02822-1808)
Loren Spears (Project Director: May 2015 to September 2016)

Hiring a consultant to undertake a preservation assessment and offer training for staff to improve care for a collection of 100,000 archival items (personal journals, scrapbooks, newspapers, maps, tribal government documents, photographs, and slides), 500 library books, and 20,000 cultural objects that document indigenous peoples of southern New England.  Among the original writings are plays and pageants that depict 18th- and 19th-century historical events penned by Princess Red Wing (1895-1987), a historian, curator, storyteller, and founder of the museum.  Highlights of the collection include a prehistoric strand of wampum and a 19th-century canoe crafted entirely using traditional techniques and decorations.  The collections are used by historians, artists, filmmakers, authors, students, and the public at large.

Tomaquag Museum's goal is to evaluate the needs of our collection that focuses on southern New England tribes and highlights the Narragansett Tribe.  Our collection is utilized by Native & non-Native researchers, historians, authors, film-makers, students and artists.  We want to look at the risks to our collection and identify the preservation needs in our current site and to plan for the long range preservation of our collection in preparation for relocation.  The project will build upon the initiatives implemented from our 2006 CAP recommendations and also substantiate collections care needs objectively.  The conservator will provide training to address the special needs for the handling and storage of our collections with the goal to provide both safe accessibility to collections and minimize physical risks during collection relocation to our new facility in the coming years.  The plan will be used to support next steps in collections care, space management and new facility planning.