University of Arizona (Arizona State Museum)

The Arizona State Museum will continue its ongoing work to stabilize its basketry collections which represent its highest institutional conservation priority. The museum's conservators and curatorial staff will work with a part-time specialist conservator, a recent conservation graduate, and a tribal pre-program intern to provide conservation treatment of 150 ethnological and archaeological cradleboards and 50 basketry hats from tribes of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. The treatment project is the final step in a comprehensive conservation program for the 35,000-item basketry collection which includes a new storage vault, object stabilization, and preventive conservation for a recently opened interpretive gallery. A training component in the treatment project will address the museum's commitment to education and outreach through the regular and ongoing inclusion of conservation program interns and University of Arizona students of diverse disciplines.