The Chrystina and James R. Parks Research Center for Archives, Conservation, and Collections Care is the heart of the museum’s collections stewardship, research, and educational activities. Within this over 100,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility reside the collection, a specially designed reading room, tribal consultation spaces, and collections care rooms. Please click here to learn more about the building.

The Autry believes in prioritizing and respecting the powers of self-representation, cultural agency, integrity, and sovereignty for peoples whose cultural materials we hold. The Parks Research Center serves to care for and provide access to these collections through exemplary stewardship. We provide a wide range of access in order to promote research, engagement, and awareness about the histories, peoples, and cultures of the American West.

In addition, we are committed to consulting and collaborating with Native nations and Indigenous communities on the interpretation, management, access, and care of Native collections. We do so because we understand these items to be the living cultural representatives of the Native nations and Indigenous communities from which they emanate. Accordingly, instructions and directives from these communities inform the interactions that Autry staff, and subsequently researchers, have with these materials. Through consultation and collaboration, we aim to augment understanding of the knowledge, histories, and lives contained within each item.