Colin's procedure is not terribly different from that practiced by7 the
Canadian War Museum, and it works well. CWM gets most of its donations by
dropoffs at the door. All go into temporary storage until examined by the
relevant curators, who select items for the National (main) Collection.
Everything else goes into the Living History Collection, used mainly for
educational programs or fleshing out exhibits. These items are referred to
as "objects", rather than "artifacts" (the term used for items in the
National Collection); they are deemed to be expendable and can be disposed
of in various ways, including use, sale or trade. They receive only enough
cataloguing to enable the staff to find them.

I think I have a copy of the acquisitions policy I wrote which describes
this more fully, if anyone wants it. Write off-list for a copy.

Harry Needham Consulting Services Inc.
Consulting, training & research solutions
for heritage institutions - and others!
74 Abbeyhill Drive
Kanata ON K2L 1H1 Canada
(voice) +1.613.831-1068
(fax) +1.613.831-9412
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin Stevens" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 1:27 PM
Subject: Re: Education Collections...


> In our outdoor village museum, which represents the early 1920s, we had a
> major problem in distinguishing between artifacts and 'non-artifacts'.
Many
> of the expendable items (in effect an education collection) were IDENTICAL
> to the artifacts or similar enough to be confused with the originals. Over
> 5,000 collection items had no accession numbers on them when I arrived at
> this museum in 1986 and replicas and 'expendable' items could easily be
> mistaken for collection items and vice versa. These items have now been
> accessioned but we have an on-going problems of artifacts with numbers
> missing in part or in whole.
>
> The catalyst for the decision that follows was my finding a wooden
spinning
> top that looked to be a genuine toy about 100 years old. A Maintenance
staff
> member recognized it and said that he had made it a few years before then,
> and that it had simply gone through literally hundreds of children's
hands -
> thus its antique appearance.
>
> Our current practice is to mark EVERYTHING.
> * Artifacts receive an accession number e.g. BV999.1.1
> * Replicas and other 'expendable' items are marked "XBV" (i.e.
Expendable -
> Burnaby Village Museum)(e.g. brooms, buckets, laser colour copies of
> Christmas cards and sheet music). These items are not worth inventorying
and
> are marked simply to avoid confusion with artifacts.
> * Valuable replicas or expendable items that would be expensive or
difficult
> to replace or to find a source for (e.g. an expensive replica 1890s
bicycle
> or a replica scientific instrument) receive a number with an "X" prefix
e.g.
> X1234. If the above bike was stolen, this system could tell us where a
> previous staff member bought it, and for how much. That alone could save
> weeks of searching for sources.
> * Costume replica items for volunteers (over 130) and staff are marked
with
> numbers (sewn in) prefixed by a letter "C". This enables us to distinguish
> between the collection clothing and expendable clothing, and to be able to
> return a forgotten hat to the person who was using it.
>
> The computer database/collection management program can be used to help
keep
> track of the numbered collection and numbered expendable items although we
> have not yet entered the X-numbered items. That is not a priority.
>
> Colin Macgregor Stevens
> Curator
> Burnaby Village Museum
> City of Burnaby, British Columbia, CANADA
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Museum web site:
> http://www.burnabyparksrec.org/villagemuseum/villagemuseum.html
>
> The opinions expressed above are my own.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of Tusculum College Museums
> Sent: April 12, 2001 9:18 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Education Collections...
>
>
> Hello,
>
> I am working at a small historic house museum which has a permanent
> collection and an educational collection.  We have inventoried,
> accessioned, and cataloged our permanent collection and now are working on
> our education collection.  In the past we have had inventories done that
> list what, where, how many and condition but what we are wondering is how
> do other similar museums handle their education collection-do they just
> inventory it making a simple list of items, or do they assign numbers to
> the items and catalog them like a permanent collection, or something
> different altogether?  Thanks for any help you can offer, Adrienne
> Marrah-Program Assistant for Museum Program and Studies
>
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