Statement of Mission of Butte County Historical Society (BCHS)

Our mission is to preserve Butte County’s rich and varied history, making it engaging and meaningful for all.

Mission of the Museum and Archives

The Museum helps meet the BCHS mission by making artifact collections available to the general public through exhibits which explain concepts and information about Butte County history–its people, places and events.

The Museum helps meet the BCHS mission by training docents to lead tours of the museum and by making back issues of the Diggen’s and other publications about Butte County history available to the public in our bookstore.

The Archives helps the BCHS mission by gathering, preserving and organizing artifactual materials pertaining to Butte County history (documenting and digitizing materials of all kinds, photographs, written materials, and artifacts) and organizing them for retrieval purposes through the development of catalogs, indices and finding aids. Documentary materials will be made available to researchers.

Purpose and Scope of Collections

The purpose of the Museum and Archival collections is to further the mission of the Butte County Historical Society.

To meet the mission of the Society, the Museum’s collections will contain artifacts and documentary materials that illustrate, document or directly relate to the history of Butte County, California.

Three major collections are managed by the Museum, two of which are permanent and one of which is expendable:

       The General Collection (permanent) which is composed of objects that relate to the social, political, economic and cultural heritage of the people of Butte County. The Museum will use these collections primarily for exhibit, but also for research and other appropriate purposes that illustrate and educate the public, in both the present and the future, about the history of the County.

       The Archives Collection (permanent) includes photographs, documents, published material, maps, scrapbooks, film, video tapes, sound recordings, ephemera and other historical materials that relate to the same parameters as the other collections. Also stored are records of enduring interest from the Museum itself. The archives will serve the research and reference needs of the community, the museum staff and visiting researchers.

       The Educational Support Collection (expendable) includes objects that may be used in the activities of the Museum’s educational and interpretive programs. Replicas, duplicates or objects of non-local origin may be designated for this collection, as well as equipment items needed to access archival non-print media. Sub-collections within the support collection may include furnishings and accouterments which have been acquired to furnish historic structures, and other materials that will enhance hands-on interpretive programming.