Information Collection Proposed for Non-Federal Interior Collection Curators

The Department of the Interior is proposing to collect information from museums, university departments, and other curators of federal collections about their compliance with federal laws, regulations, and Departmental policy pertaining to the documentation, management, and preservation of Interior museum collections.

The annual information collection is estimated to take 2 hours and 20 minutes per respondent. Information collected would include:

1. A facility checklist to assess and evaluate exhibit, storage, and administrative office spaces that house Interior museum collections to ensure compliance with Department requirements.
2. A catalog records of Interior museum objects, including accession number; catalog number; discipline and classification; object or scientific name; unit acronym and/or identifier; controlled property status; item count or quantity; current location; description; condition; date cataloged; cataloger; and other required discipline-specific information related to scientific collections and archives, such as provenience, collector, collection site, date and number, and archival scope, content, organization or arrangement.
3. Accession records of Interior museum objects and collections, including accession number; source and contact information; date received; date accessioned; accession type; description; project name; item total by discipline; catalog status; and any catalog numbers in the accession.
4. Inventories of Interior museum collections, including object found; item count; location; condition; date of inventory; and inventory method.
5. Information on Interior collections, including the estimated number of Interior collections at the facility, if applicable; accession numbers of Interior collections; number of catalog records for Interior collections; type of museum catalog database used, if applicable; existence of Interior NAGPRA collections; inventory status; and research use.

About ten percent of Interior’s collections are managed by non-federal partners.

Public comments on the proposed information collection are due by 5 March 2015. Learn more at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-02-03/html/2015-01880.htm.