I'm looking for examples (e.g., newspaper articles and other written documents
I can get my hands on) about cases in which museums have been sued, have gotten
into some other type of legal hot water, or at least have faced intense public
scrutiny and embarrassment over misuse or mishandling of their artifact
collections due to registration problems.  I am NOT looking for cases of abuse
in terms of the artifacts' physical condition, but more cases in which artifacts
have disappeared without a paper trail, have been mistakenly treated as personal
property (as in the case where a museum director takes home an object that was
in his/her office when in fact it belonged in the artifact collection), etc.
Hopefully you get the gyst of what I'm after.

Does anyone have the name and phone number or e-mail of a contact at ALI-ABA
or some other organization that might have documentation bearing on such cases?

Thanks to all of you who responded on my query about street banners.  I would
welcome more responses on that issue as well, especially relating to what
museums do with the banners once they take them down (throw them out, sell them,
auction them off, etc.)


Amy A. Douglass
Tempe Historical Museum
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