We thank you for your interest in donating to The Los Altos History Museum Collection!
The Museum recognizes that in order to tell the Los Altos story, we must build an appropriate collection that represents our history and community. Donating to the collection is an important act that transforms personal or family heirlooms and memorabilia by integrating them into the collective memory and shared narrative of all residents, past and future.
Our responsibility is to curate a collection that accurately reflects the range of experiences so that the Collection as a whole presents a reliable record. Do you have an interesting artifact to donate to the Collection? If so, please review the sections below and submit your inquiry through the button. We look forward to reviewing your artifact with you!
Anna Knapp Fitz art is accessioned.
The Museum’s Collections Archives.
All artifact donations must further the Museum’s mission statement. The artifact must showcase authenticity, provenance and relevance to the Permanent and/or Education Collections, including larger themes and topics of the “Southern Peninsula” story.
Acquisition into the Collection will need to meet at least one of the initial criteria as stated below to be considered for accession to either the Permanent or the Education Collections. The following describes the types of materials we seek on a rolling basis:
All of the following criteria must be met in order to accession an acquisition to the Permanent Collection:
In order to process an artifact donation, you must submit an inquiry online to the Collections Committee at research@losaltoshistory.org.
Please allow up to two weeks for a member of the Collections Committee to review your inquiry. Upon review of your submission, a member of the Collections Committee or Collections staff will reach out to make an appointment with you.
We seek artifact donations on a rolling basis to our Permanent Collection and donations by need-basis or project-basis for various Special Collecting Initiatives. All donation submissions are carefully considered and thoughtfully reviewed on a monthly basis by the Collections Committee, Collections Chair and Collections Strategist. The Museum must be able to appropriately care for the artifacts it accepts, providing proper storage and preservation care.
To view the donations process click here.
The Museum has embarked on a seminal project to modernize and upgrade its core exhibition. The reimagined exhibition will offer visitors an interactive multimedia experience of the people, events, and places that have shaped our local history. We are seeking artistic and cultural artifacts, journals, photographs, maps, objects, oral memoirs, letters, and documents related to the story of the Los Altos area, its people, community and culture.
The Museum is calling for journals, essays, articles, artworks, poems, artifacts, posters, flyers, written works, creative works, documents or materials in efforts to document the social, cultural, historical and everyday life of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an effort to mindfully document diverse narratives, stories and experiences within our collections, we are proud to present the Social Justice Collection. This collection explores the history of local civil rights movements, immigration, race and multicultural identities of the Southern Peninsula. Through your artifact contributions, we hope to build a collection that represents our growing community and expands our awareness of diverse cultures and languages that make up Santa Clara County.
