Description

The California Indian Museum and Cultural Center (CIMCC) is a respected Native controlled museum space in Northern California that does a lot of program work related to museum studies, archives and community building. This innovative program aims to build the capacity of individuals working in tribal museums around archives and museum operations. The CIMCC partners with the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum at the University of California, Berkeley to expose attendees to this through a 4-day program. This 4-day training attracts individuals from across the US but mostly Native people from CA though they have had more non-Natives interested in their program to learn how to better handle and partner with Native communities on tribal archives. Some of the agenda items during this 4 day training include the following: Collections Management and Cataloging; Conservation/Collections Care,  Curation and Exhibit Design, Managing and Sharing Digital Cultural Heritage Using an Open Source Platform (Mukurtu and TK Labels); Educational Programming for Children and Youth ; Repatriation and NAGPRA; Museum Development, Management and Fundraising and Cultural Sensitivity and the Movement to Decolonize Museums. Beyond this needed training, this project also is interesting in that CIMCC is the lead applicant not the University partner and they are really pushing the boundaries of prioritizing Native needs and demands in archives, curation and museum operations. Beyond this project, the Museum has been closely working with the Hearst and Berkeley on issues of NAGPRA and the university will be hiring their first tribal liaison in 2024.  Their partnership with Berkely and the Heart speaks to the leadership of the CIMCC and their work to partner with organizations to be more responsive to Native archives, NAGPRA, etc.