It's called the Associates Program.  For $2500 (annually?) a museum can have
access to borrowing chunks of the SI's collection (actually the website
says: "the Smithsonian's Collections-based Affiliations Program permits the
long-term loan of artifacts and enables program participants to incorporate
Smithsonian collections in more than one format..."

Janice Klein
Director
Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, Kendall College
[log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Godbold <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, February 23, 2001 1:38 PM
Subject: Re: Object Sharing


>Hi, all. I have heard of the Smithsonian doing things like this with their
>collections, though I don't know how formalized it is. A museum I worked
for
>had a collection of toys that were on 'permanent loan' (I think that was
the
>terminology) from the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian still held the title to
>the toys, but the museum where I worked stored and cared for them. I
suspect
>this is more true for biological, archeaological and anthropological
>specimens because all things collected, excavated, etc. on federal property
>belong to the federal government, i.e. the Smithsonian. I imagine that a
lot
>of these specimens are in museums closer to where they were found, rather
>than in Washington, DC. I hope this helps.
>
>I have also enjoyed the spirited Rudy Guliani debate. Keep up the good
work.
>                                                        -Chris Godbold

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