The Museum Store is open on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. and entrance to the museum is free. Visitors can enjoy a variety of entertaining and educational events. Members can enjoy monthly Southwest Preservation Tours and special interest lectures on the fourth Saturday of the month, with advanced registration strongly encouraged. Family activities take place on weekends, including Storytime on the first Saturday, DigIt! Family Style, a hands-on archaeology program on the second Sunday, and Kit and Kaboodle, a craft-making project in the Museum Store, on the third Saturday of each month.
The Braun Research Library, located in a separate building at the Southwest, will continue to be open by appointment. The Casa de Adobe on Figueroa Street, remains open for special activities and tours.
The Southwest Museum currently holds one of the nation's most important collections related to the American Indian. However, some of the collection has been damaged, while other objects have been put at risk due to over crowding and the significant deterioration of the Southwest building. Most recently, water leaked into the museum building necessitating the entire pottery collection and tunnel dioramas to be moved for their protection. The elevator tower was flooded, causing it to be shut down because it posed a temporary electrical threat. Vermin, including silverfish, have infested both the artifacts and the containers in which they are stored.
Insufficient and antiquated storage facilities have imperiled the collection. The inadequate exhibit space in the Southwest Museum requires 98% of the 250,000 items in the collection to remain in storage at any given time. Currently, the collection is largely stored in the seven-story Caracol Tower, which is inappropriate in size and condition for the conservation, documentation, and scholarly requirements of the collection.
Until new facilities are constructed, the collection will be moved into the exhibition galleries until proper storage and exhibition facilities are built as part of an expansion of the Autry's Griffith Park campus. Relocating the collection will result in more than five times the current gallery space, as well as state-of-the art storage and scholarly facilities.
