Collections Care Notices
The Collections Care (CC) Notices are visible identifiers developed specifically for institutions and repositories to support proper cultural care and stewardship of collections, led and guided by Indigenous protocols and authority.
The CC Notices recognize that there are accompanying cultural rights, protocols, and responsibilities that govern the care, display, and access to cultural materials within collections. This reflects Indigenous sensibilities and worldviews where these collections are not objects but need to be cared for as relatives and relations.
The CC Notices are for implementation by institutions and repositories internally and directly on collections as well as within policy, workflows, and practices surrounding the care and stewardship of these important collections.
This is the overall Notice icon that can be used to indicate that some or all of the Collections Care Notices are being used.
This is the inverted version of the current overall Notice for the other Local Contexts Notices – reflecting the internal use of these Notices.
These Notices were developed in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
For more information on how to display or use the Notices, view the Collections Care Usage Guide or register for the Local Contexts Hub.
Planning to use the Collections Care Notices
1. Engage with community-specific Indigenous experts to determine the culturally appropriate care and governance for relatives and relations held in the collections.
2. Institutions can register with the Local Contexts Hub at www.LocalContextsHub.org and then download the full set of Collections Care Notices.
3. Establish support at an institutional, departmental, or otherwise administrative policy level to endure the CC Notices receive adequate internal support in implementation and use.
4. Implement the Notices into the institutional CMS. Currently the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has begun implementation into EMu. We will be running some webinars on this implementation in the coming weeks and months.
