In a message dated 01-09-07 11:21:34 EDT, John Rumm wrote:

<< I am endeavoring to prepare a response that will, I hope, resolve the
situation.  In framing my response, I have consulted the 1978 report by AAM's
Committee on Ethics, on "Museum Ethics."  This source is very helpful with
regard to staff members using in their homes or for any personal purpose
objects that are part of the museum's collection or are its official
property, but it doesn't address the corollary, i.e., the use by staff of
space and furnishings to store personal property, other than to state that
such should not be used except for official business purposes. >>

Pardon my ignorance, not having read the 1978 AAM report, but let me get this
straight: the report has nothing to say about the use of museum space to
store personal property, yet it is "helpful with regard to staff members
using IN THEIR HOMES [emphasis added!]...objects that are part of the
museum's collection..." ???  Gee, I would have thought it would just say no!
Clarification, please!  In my museum that would be a very major no-no--and I
can't imagine any other museum allowing staff to take home collection items
for personal use.  Talk about your fringe benefits!

As far as your question is concerned, I must say I'm shocked and amazed that
any employer, museum or not, would direct you to take home "all" personally
owned items.  A case can be made for lack of storage space when a staff
member has only a work area and no office--I certainly wouldn't want people
cluttering up common, shared areas with personal stuff--but if you do have an
office it's absurd to prohibit you from keeping any and all personal items
there.  Other rationales for such a prohibition might be safety and aesthetic
issues--cluttering your space so that it's hazardous and unclean or looks
unprofessional--but these might be more a function of quantity rather than
what specific items you choose to keep there.  Certainly it's inappropriate
to "store" large quantities of personal items, such as, oh, say, the lumber
you're going to use for your house addition or your dirty laundry (some of
the examples given did sound a bit like people were trying to live in their
offices, which there may be good reasons to discourage), but a change of
clothes, some reference books, your framed picture of your spouse, your
lunch-hour knitting supplies?  Give me a break.  On the face of it, the
directive to remove "all" personal items sounds petty, mean-spirited, and
dictatorial.

A museum does need to be careful about letting people keep personal items on
the premises which could be mistaken for collection objects or vice-versa, to
be sure.  If I worked in a costume museum, I'd be a bit nervous about letting
a weekend Civil War re-enactor keep his replica uniforms in the office, as he
might accidentally walk home with an ensemble from the collection someday.
This, it seems to me, would be the real issue for a museum to be concerned
about, and filing inventories of personally owned objects for precisely this
reason--to minimize confusion and prevent theft by substitution--would be in
order.  While I thoroughly disagree with policies forbidding personal
collecting, I think full disclosure for the ethical concerns already
expressed is pertinent.  I collect photographs, both personally and
professionally, but I wouldn't risk confusion or question by decorating my
office with my personal collection.  But forbidding me to keep an extra pair
of shoes or a jacket or sweater in my office, just because the museum also
collects costume items--or for any other reason--is overkill.

Forbidding personally-owned books--whether you use them in your work, or just
read on your lunch hour?  Ridiculous.  But you can overdo it.  I know people
who keep extensive personal libraries in their offices, and end up
commingling catalogued museum-owned library books on the same shelves.
That's a potential problem.  If the issue your employer is really concerned
about is traffic--the potential for confusion when you take home a "personal"
item that might actually be a museum collection object--what you need is a
good property pass system and knowledgeable people to approve and sign the
passes.

There are some legitimate issues here, but some autocratic zero-tolerance
policy isn't the answer.

David Haberstich

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