Donate Artifacts
The mission of the Mahwah Museum Archives and Library is to support the Museum’s mission of documenting and sharing the history of the town and region by collecting, preserving, and making available for use, records pertaining to the region now known as Mahwah, New Jersey, Bergen County, surrounding regions in New Jersey and New York, and to residents, businesses and organizations of these towns.
The Archive’s goal is to make its holdings available to Museum staff and the public. Materials that have restricted use will only be accepted if there are reasonable limits placed on use; either a date after which the materials can be accessed, or an understanding that scholars can use materials if they do not include names.
Once materials are donated to the Archive, they may be used in physical exhibits, scanned and placed on the Museum’s digital archive, moved to another part of the Museum’s collection, sold, or may be deaccessioned if they no longer meet the Museum’s mission.
We could not fulfill our mission without the support of the community. We have built our archive through the generous donations of the community over the past fifty years. But we cannot take everything. Space at the museum is tight and off site storage is expensive.
If you are considering making a donation, please see our policies below.
Please do not leave anonymous donations outside our door! We are more likely to keep donations if we understand the connection that they had with the town and if we know what those items are. Each donated item is also evaluated to determine how well it meets our mission. Anonymous donations cannot be properly catalogued or cared for.
We cannot accept materials that are damaged from mold, mildew, water, insects, smoke or dirt as these may migrate to other portions of the collection.
We also cannot accept materials that we cannot properly store, display, or care for. We would be happy to help you find a more appropriate home for such materials.
Contact:
If you would like to donate artifacts, books, materials or documents that fit the above stated criteria please contact the museum by calling 201.512.0099 or emailing archives@mahwahmuseum.org with a brief description of your items, as well as a brief description of their condition.