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    Artifact Collections

    Our collection is an estimated 1,000,000 artifacts that document human settlement in the seven county region of Southern Oregon. Our artifacts include tools and baskets made by the Native American tribes who lived in the region, quilts brought here in covered wagons by pioneers who traveled on the Oregon Trail, and items that reflect contemporary life.

    Many items in the SOHS collection are included in our online catalog

    Deaccessioning

    Like many historical societies, when the Southern Oregon Historical Society first started collecting artifacts, it did not have a collections policy to guide its activities. As a result, we have many artifacts in our collection that are not representative of southern Oregon. Common practice was to invite the community to bring in whatever objects they had in their houses that might be of interest to other people; that included souvenirs that people bought while they were on vacation in other countries,  natural history specimens, and objects that better represent other parts of the United States, such as a Confederate flag.

    To see our Collections Management Policy, click here.

    Deaccessioning means that an artifact is removed from the permanent museum collection    . The process by which we make this decision is lengthy - any artifact suggested for deaccessioning by staff curators gets reviewed by the Collections Committee and then gets voted on by the Board of Trustees. If the vote is positive, deaccessioned artifacts may be removed from the collection in four ways:
    1) The item may be given or traded with a nonprofit organization.
    2) The items may be sold to a nonprofit organization.
    3) The item may be sold at a public auction.
    4) The item may be disposed of if it is hazardous or in extremely poor condition.

    The proceeds from sold deaccessioned artifacts must be used for the direct care of collections, like improving the conditions in our collections storage facility, cleaning artifacts, or digitizing our records so our collection is more easily accessible by the public. 

    Deaccessioning items in our collection allows us to better care for the artifacts that are intrinsic to our mission. To view a spreadsheet of artifacts that are being deaccessioned, click here.