>     We are faced more and more regularly by requests for fees to
>facilitate a loan of objects for exhibition, particularly by our Russian
>colleagues.  I am wondering how many museums have established loan fees,
>and what's the range?  We'd like to walk into negotiations with a little
>more "accepted practice" behind us.
>     Reply to me directly, and I'll summarize for the group if I get any
>kind of concensus.  Thanks.
>     Diane Brenner, Anchorage Museum
>     [log in to unmask]

Diane
We don't charge for loans per se (I'm assuming you don't mean travelling
exhibitons) but we insist on condition reports and any stabilizing treatment
to be paid for by the borrowing institution. However, there is a great hue
and cry over this policy. Canadian museums are barely staying above water
funding wise and more and more we have to account for the bottom line. Our
management feels that we can no longer subsidize other institutions and
other smaller institutions feel betrayed by this charging of costs back to them.
Even when we have charged them it was never matched with the actual time
that was spent on the objects and still we incurred the wrath of other
museums who felt that they would no longer be able to display objects that
were part of their constituents history because we had the object in our
collection. (Our mandate  tends to be regional even though we are the
largest civic museum in Canada) There are many smaller museums within our
collecting range and we do indeed possess much of the region's material.
We've stopped charging, so in fact many things can't go out without
attention, so everyone looses. We always keep the safety of the artifact
paramount. It would be nice if smaller museums realized that they have only
a one time charge (a small one) compared to the cost to us of storing the
artifact for 100 years with the ensuing care that must be afforded to it.
So I'm justifying charging, but mostly just the cost of processing the
object and delivering it to your care. Why should the taxpayers of one area
foot the bill for another area?
Fair price? Who knows? I would ask to just pay for hourly cost of
conservation and packing.
Linda Tanaka
Vancouver Museum
Vancouver, BC
[log in to unmask]

(opinions are mine not my insitution)