Dear Julia,
Italian museums have two separate checklists: one for furniture, 
technical equipment, didactic material etc, and the other for the 
museum collection.
Although the two checklists look very similar (they both include a 
definition of the object, a short description, the date of 
acquisition and a monetary value) the difference is very important: 
in fact the objects listed in the first can be dismissed rather 
easily, while the others are almost impossible to deaccess.
As a musical instrument museum, for example, we have several violins 
in both inventories, but the ones that are in the first checklist are 
of little importance, can be used for didactic purposes and dismissed 
when broken, while the others cannot.

There has been some discussion, years ago, about the possibility for 
Italian State Museums to deaccess cultural heritage (as American 
museums, for example, can do), but it was considered as an attempt of 
the government to raise money selling the national heritage and the 
project was finally abandoned - at least for museum objects.
Best wishes
Gabriele Rossi Rognoni




dott. Gabriele Rossi-Rognoni
Curatore
Museo degli Strumenti Musicali
Galleria dell'Accademia
via Ricasoli, 60
I - 50122 Firenze - Italy
tel.: +39.055.2388609
fax: +39.055.2388764
e-mail: [log in to unmask] 

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