My understanding of ethical deaccessioning lists transfer as the first option, followed by auction and then destruction. I work at a county historical society. The things we deaccession are not generally items that another institution is going to want in their collection. Public auction is a valuable tool to keep objects that are still in good condition but don’t fit our mission out of the dumpster. It also provides a little bit of cash flow for collections care, since our budget is perennially tight (not that that is why we deaccession them.)

Amanda

On Nov 12, 2019, at 11:16 AM, Michael Rebman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


Greetings,

I do not think anybody is saying that deaccessioning items is bad as a concept.  What the blog post calls out is the act of selling items from a collection via auction, as though the items are just inventory and not being held in a trust for long-term preservation.  The sale of items removes it from that trust and places it into private hands if a private buyer won the auction.  Any collecting institute, whether government or operated by a not-for-profit foundation or board, should make sure that the right artifacts are in the right repositories, whether that means turning down donations or transferring artifacts to other institutions.

Thank you,

Michael R.

On Tue, Nov 12, 2019 at 9:39 AM topladave . <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I am going to take a contrary point-of-view in this thread. I think it needs to be said that careful and thoughtful deaccesioning serves a necessary and important purpose for museums.

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