Museum Program / Museum Resource Center

Interns from the University of Maryland work on collections from the Frederick Douglass NHS.

Overview

As part of the National Park Service National Capital Region Resource Stewardship and Science directorate, the Museum Program provides professional curatorial support for National Park Service parks in Washington, D.C. and parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Services include general oversight of park museum programs, development and implementation of core management and planning documents, assistance with cataloging, processing, and inventorying collections, ensuring ongoing preservation and conservation of NPS museum collections, providing long-term curatorial storage, and guidance and support with registration and documentation processes such as accessioning, deaccessioning, and loan agreements. Museum collections from all disciplines recognized by the National Park Service are included: archeology, ethnology, historic, natural history (biology, geology, and paleontology), and archives.

Contact

For more information, please contact Laura Anderson, Regional Curator and Director of the Museum Resource Center, and if you need assistance from Resource Stewardship and Science (RESS), you may submit a Solution for Technical Assistance Requests (STAR) request online (NPS Only).

Links

• Museum Resource Center serves as the central curatorial repository in the NCR.
• NPS Museum Management Program manages all NPS museum programs service-wide.
• NPS Museum Handbook provides service-wide museum collections management guidance.
• NPS Conserve O Grams series provides guidance for preservation and conservation of museum objects.
• NPS Teaching with Museum Collections includes lesson plans that use NPS museum collections in student-centered educational activities.
• NPS Web Catalog provides access to park museum collections and images.
• NPS Virtual Museum Exhibits present themes that showcases NPS museum collections.