The free museum, tucked behind the college's Frank P. Doyle Library, is small but packs a punch. The main attraction: a collection of 3,500 items, including ceramics, basketry, beadwork, sculpture, textiles, jewelry and photographs.

American Indian art makes up the greatest portion of the collection, with cultures such as Acoma, Navajo, Haida, Hopi, San Ildefonso and Tlingit represented.

The museum displays art from other regions around the globe: Central America, South America and Asia.

A new exhibition and lecture series spotlighting basketry from the African nation of Eritrea opened Thursday. The first lecture, by the Hoover Institution's Issayas Tesfamariam, is scheduled for Monday.

Not surprisingly, the collection emphasizes Pomo Indian art. This American Indian group has inhabited Sonoma County for hundreds of years, and the museum displays baskets from some of the tribal elders, including Elsie Allen, who died in 1990.

There are also miniature baskets no larger than thimbles. Another case displays feathered Pomo dance regalia.

Many of these pieces were made by artists to be sold in art markets; the museum makes clear that it does not collect or exhibit sacred or religious articles of North American Indian people.

Ceramic collections include pieces from well-known American Indian artists: Lucy Lewis, Nampeyo, and Maria and Julian Martinez.

Sandra Hollimon, the museum director, says that because most of the work was made by modern artists, it is considered art, not artifact.

"Many of our visitors know very little about local native cultures, so we use the Pomo collection to highlight these societies and emphasize that these people are still around," she says.

The museum once was named for Jesse Peter, a Santa Rosa native who taught in public schools and the junior college. Peter purchased many of the Southwestern ceramics in the museum's collection and opened the museum in 1940.

That collection expanded over time. In the 1970s, Bill Smith, a college instructor and Mihilakawna (Dry Creek) Pomo, added a number of items to the collection. More recently, anthropologist and college instructor Ben Benson added acquisitions.

Benson, who has since retired, was a key figure in the renovation of the facility, which was completed last year.

Now that this makeover is complete, Hollimon says the museum receives light traffic daily, roughly 300 visitors per month. {sbox}

Santa Rosa Junior College Museum: 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Mon.-Thurs., 8:30 a.m.-noon, 1-3:30 p.m. Fri. 1501 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. (707) 527-4479, www.santarosa.edu/museum.

Matt Villano is a freelance writer. E-mail him at pinkletters@sfchronicle.com.