MS303: Found in the Collection: Orphans, Old
Loans and Abandoned Property
Dates: Feb 1 - Mar 12, 2010
Price: $475
Instructor: Lin Nelson-Mayson
Description:
Every museum has a few stray items. Some lost tags long
ago. Others turn up as surprises during inventories. A few
are all that remain from long-ago exhibits. While you'll
want to keep some, others may be deteriorating. Even worse,
some pose significant hazards for staff and the rest of the
collection. All raise legal and professional questions. How
do you deal with objects that have no records? Or loans
from unidentified or deceased lenders? Found in the
Collection addresses how to identify abandoned objects and
old loans. It further covers the application of state laws
and rules for identifying owners or establishing ownership.
Course Outline:
1. Introduction
2. Definitions and legislation
3. Identification and process - Abandoned property and
?Found in the Collection?
4. Identification and process - Old Loans
5. Systems to regulate future problems
6. Conclusion
Required Textbook
The New Museum Registration Methods, 4th edition. Edited by
Rebecca A. Buck & Jean Allman Gilmore. 427 pages (American
Association of Museums; 1998) ISBN: 0-931201-31-4.
Available through American Association of Museums. $55.00
(non-member cost) $40.00 (member cost)
Logistics:
Participants in Found in the Collection work through
sections on their own. Instructor Lin Nelson-Mayson is
available for scheduled email support. Materials and
resources include online literature, slide lectures and
dialog between students and online chats led by the
instructor. The course is limited to 20 participants.
Found in the Collection runs four weeks. To reserve a spot
in the course, please pay at
http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html If you have
trouble please contact Helen Alten at
[log in to unmask]
Student Comments for MS303: Found in the Collection:
It covered situations which I am encountering in my work.
It showed me where to look to answer questions about the
legal aspects of FIC objects. It made me aware of the
weakness of current Abandoned Property laws in my state
(and apparently most others)? I found the lectures and
readings very helpful.
I liked being able to work on the materials at my own pace.
The feedback from the instructor was very helpful. My
favorite part of the course were the online chats. These
were very engaging and it was great way to discuss issues
and find solutions to the challenges our collections pose.
I thought the course was very helpful and the technology
worked wonderfully for me. The lectures were very helpful
in giving an overview and did a good job of summarizing the
major points. I thought the readings were especially
helpful in gaining different perspectives about the issues.
It was interesting to see other institutions' policies and
procedures.
Thank you for facilitating this course. Lin, our
instructor, was very helpful and insightful. She asked very
good questions, which helped me really think carefully
through all of the steps of handling old loans, FICs and
abandoned property. While I will be making some revisions
to our policies and procedures, the course did confirm that
many of the policies and procedures we have in place are
very good. I certainly feel empowered to deal with these
objects now! I think that the chats were extremely helpful
for hashing out the issues and gave me much-needed
reassurance that I was not the only one dealing with them.
I liked: a) how much content was covered; b) how the
information presented could be applied to a variety of
museums across the board (i.e. state museums,
not-for-profit, and yes, private-owned); c) the ease that
we could still interact as a class even though we were all
over the country.
It brought forth a lot of things that we haven't been doing
as a museum?
The Instructor:
Lin Nelson-Mayson, with over 25 years of museum experience
at small and large institutions, is director of the
University of Minnesota's Goldstein Museum of Design. Prior
to that, she was the director of ExhibitsUSA, a nonprofit
exhibition touring organization that annually tours over 30
art and humanities exhibitions across the country. For five
years, she was a coordinator or judge for the American
Association of Museums' Excellence in Exhibitions
Competition. She currently serves on the exhibition
committee for the National Sculpture Society. Ms.
Nelson-Mayson has extensive experience with the planning,
preparation, research and installation of exhibitions. Ms
Nelson-Mayson's experience includes teaching museum studies
and museology courses. Her particular interest is the needs
of small museums.
Her credentials include the following;
* An MFA from The Ohio State University in sculpture
and critical writing
* A BFA from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in
painting.
* Work as a curator for the Ross County Historic
Society (Chillicothe, Ohio), the Art Museum of South Texas
(Corpus Christi), the Columbia Museum of Art (South
Carolina), and the Minnesota Museum of American Art.
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