Consultation with a conservator to help prepare a long range conservation plan for 4.5 million artifacts and specimens in collections that focus on the natural and human history and culture of the Colorado Plateau.

A project to rehouse 2,202 works of art on paper from the fine arts collection, many of them by Native American artists, in acid-free presentation mats and in new storage furniture, and to make them available through the museum’s online collections portal. 

The Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) requests $343,812 from NEH to support a three-year rehousing project focused on 2,202 works, many Native American, in MNA’s fine arts collection. Largely consisting of works of art on paper (watercolors, drawings, etc.), they are in the state-of-the-art, platinum LEED certified Easton Collections Center (ECC). The works remain in acidic boxes and mats in which they have been stored for decades in old storage. At preservation risk in these containers, they were moved to the ECC in 2019 where they are stored on temporary racks or leaning against storage walls. MNA will improve physical access to works on paper by rehousing them in acid free presentation mats and storing them in new containers in mobile storage furniture purchased during this project. Intellectual access will be improved as collection data is posted through the Argus.net public web portal to a new audience including Native American, the public, and scholars from around the nation.

Funding supports the purchase of museum storage furniture and rehousing supplies to rehouse three major collections: 829 Katsina dolls, 4,375 prehistoric ceramic vessels, and 200 linear feet of archives and 3,000 glass plate negatives and lantern slides that document the museum's collections. For each collection, the Museum will also purchase three high efficiency particulate (HEPA) filter vacuums for housekeeping.

This project seeks to complete the upgrade of storage conditions for the three the collections in the most critical and immediate need as well as purchase housekeeping equipment to assist with the implementation of a housekeeping policy to maintain the new Easton Collection Center. Upon accomplishing these objectives, this project will remedy imminent risk of deterioration to MNA's Katsina doll collection, Prehistoric ceramics collection and Archival Manuscript Collection, as well as provide housekeeping equipment that will benefit all priority one and two collections items stored within the new facilities. Support from NEH for these initiatives will allow MNA to provide the standard of care necessary for the preservation of these collections, the scope of which is unmatched on the Colorado Plateau. The project will run from January 2010 through to June 2011.

The rehousing of approximately 3,500 acetate negatives contained in a photographic archive documenting research on the Colorado Plateau region. The collection covers the ethnographic work of the museum's founders, Harold S. and Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton, who studied Hopi culture and society. The photoarchives contain images of the 84-year history of the Heritage Program Festival, which captures the artistic work of various Native American tribes. The photos are used by tribal members for understanding the techniques and design elements used to create pottery, basketry, and paintings, as well as for deriving inspiration for current artistic creations. The rehousing of the negatives in archival sleeves will help prepare at-risk images for future digitization.

The goal of this project is to address the urgent top priority preservation needs of the Museum of Northern Arizona's (MNA) endangered photoarchives as identified by a Photographic Materials Conservator during an August 2012 IMLS-funded conservation survey. Serving as an important resource for scholars, staff, tribes, and the public, the photoarchives are unique, irreplaceable, primary documents that record 84 years of research and collaboration between staff, researchers, and tribes in northern Arizona. Activity 1: rehouse six drawers of acetate negatives that are at risk of deterioration due to vinegar syndrome. Application of appropriate rehousing materials will stabilize the acetates until they are digitized and frozen. Activity 2: locate and rehouse prints associated with the negatives. Activity 3: transcribe information physically located with the acetates and their associated prints. This information, along with essential metadata, will be entered into the archives database.