Jennifer:

Have you talked locally to archivists on this?

Public record offices at all levels (national, regional and local) have
this sort of problem all the time, and most have well-estalbished codes
and procedures for it.  When I headed a major local authority service
covering museums, arts, heritage and archives we had many categories of
collection which were by law "closed" for 30 years except to official
bodies and the record subjects themselves and their lawyers etc. (e.g.
criminal court case files), and some highly personal material "closed" for
100 years (e.g. records of children in the care of our authority (and its
predecessors).  Many categories of privately deposited records (e.g.
family records, business records) were similarly actively collected as
near contemporaneously as possible, but with a contractually binding
"closure" of perhaps 20 years or 30 years.

As I have said above, I feel it is very likely you will get good guidance
and some model rules or conditions well established and tested under
Australian natinoal and state law on which you could base your own scheme.

The ICOM Code of Ethics (via http://ww.icom.org) also has guidance clauses
on the ethical aspects of collecting, holding and using "sensitive
material".

Patrick Boylan

==========================


On Thu, 31 Jul 1997, Jennifer Nuske wrote:

> Subject: Help: Sensitive Collection Material
> Newsgroups:   bit.listserv.museum-l
>
> I am involved in drafting a collection policy for what will become a
> highly sensitive collection. I would like to contact curators that have
> been involved in or care for sensitive collection material such as that
> arising from war/human conflict. Issues to be dealt with include sealing
> items for future consideration, approaching community consultation and
> ethical dilemas related to retaining or destroying sensiitve material.
>
> Please answer off list.
>