List members might like to see an extract from the ICOM Code of Ethics
on deaccessioning policies and procedures (4.3).  This is the
international minimum standard.  The full text is on the ICOM web
site: www.icom.org.

"Where a museum has the necessary legal powers to dispose of an
object, the decision to sell or otherwise dispose of material from the
collections should be taken only after due consideration (See 4.1).
Such material should be offered first by exchange, gift or private
treaty sale to other museums before sale by public auction or other
means is considered...

....Members of the museum staff, the governing body, or their families
or close associates, should never be permitted to purchase objects
that have been deaccessioned from a collection.  Similarly, no such
person should be permitted to appropriate items from the museum
collections, even temporarily, to any personal collection or for
personal use."

Geoffrey Lewis
(Chair, ICOM Ethics Committee)

----------------------------

Date:    Tue, 2 Apr 2002 16:45:22 -0500
From:    Samantha Grantham <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: purchasing conflict of interest


Currently our policy regarding purchasing deaccessioned materials at
auction reads:

"No objects to be deaccessioned can be acquired privately by any
staff, volunteer, board member, or committee member of the Society
unless acquired by purchase at a public sale of such objects or
through other means of public disposal."

Is this standard and ethical practice? It is my understanding that
anyone associated with an institution should not knowingly purchase
deaccessioned materials from that institution because it was a
conflict of interest.

Does anyone else have a similar policy?

Samantha Grantham
Collections Manager
Beverly Historical Society
117 Cabot St.
Beverly, MA 01915
(978) 922 - 1186
[log in to unmask]
www.beverlyhistory.org

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