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Settling In: 1973-1984

Maxwell Museum Blog

Maxwell Museum front door

The Museum’s docent program grew and became the Maxwell’s Education Division. Through a partnership with the Albuquerque Public Schools, Museum staff created portable trunks to take anthropology to classrooms across the city. Public lectures, demonstrations, and field trips attracted visitors to campus. The Maxwell’s successes were recognized in 1973 when it received accreditation from the newly-formed American Association of Museums; reaccreditation followed in 1984.Docent Carolyn Minette with children

Another important aspect of community involvement crystallized in 1976, when the Maxwell Museum Association was founded. This organization of individuals dedicated to supporting the Museum became a critical partner, drawing more visitors to the Museum, assisting in the development of collections and collections management, fund raising, and offering an active program of lectures, trips and tours, and work­ shops.

A major addition to the Museum's research focus came in 1975 with the organization of the Office of Contract Archeology. From the beginning. OCA had its own administrative and research staff. Its activities created significant new knowledge and contributed greatly to the growth of the museum's collections. OCA subsequently became part of the Anthropology Department before returning to the Maxwell as a research division in 1998.Excavation by the Office of Contract Archeology crew member

Under Brody's leadership, the Maxwell became one of the first museums in the country to begin to shift its collections records to electronic form in order to strengthen the Museum’s ability to manage and track its collections. This was particularly important because the collections had once again exceeded the capacity of their storage area. To address this, a large portion of the archaeological collections were moved to a large warehouse on north campus, where they remain today.