The interchange on connecting museum shops and exhibits is worth pursuing
further.  I hope it is generally accepted in the museum profession that if
a museum does operate a gift shop, the merchandise should have some bearing
on  the content of the museum and also be of some educational value.

A special exhibit can call for the manufacture or purchase of related items
for sale, if there seems to be a potential market for them.

While souvenir items, ties and scarves, soaps, mugs, jewelry, and what-not
may not exactly "fit" this general guidelines, usually they bear the
museum's symbol or have some other marketing related use to the museum.
And then there are readily available souvenir items that fall even outside
this boundary.  Nonperishable food products bearing the museum's label (but
mass produced for other shops and even the supermarket under a recognized
brand name) seem to be popular in some museum shops -- but give the
impression, at least, that they are local and unique.

In my opinion, under no circumstances should a museum shop sell items in
its care even if useless for exhibit (sherds, mini-balls, melted down
things, and so forth).  I believe this is an ethical matter already
resolved within the professional standards.

We have cases of fragments.  Our spring exhibit recalls the 1971 dig on
this site, and now these sherds and oddments have a place in the sun --
even our little plastic bags of soil and bits of ancient charcoal are
useful -- as we speak to the science of archaeology.

A museum that happens for example to own lots and lots of arrow points (all
looking nearly alike) could make a few dollars by selling them, but they
don't belong anywhere but in collections storage or in the hands of another
museum that might be able to use them.  Provenance may be questionable if
they were given to museums by various well-intended people, but these items
do have an illustrative value -- somewhere, but not in a museum gift shop.

As to reproductions being sold at a museum shop (and there are lots of
vendors for these), they need to be labeled as reproductions.  The
purchaser should have no doubt whatsoever that they are "fake."  Even if
they are good "fakes."

The original query on this mentioned a visit to a "country" museum.  Very
often the shops in the smaller communities (and even the metro areas) are
run by "friends."  But the "friends" ought to be given orientation on
museum ethics and standards, just as orientation is given other volunteers
and board members.

There was alarm that the museum director said something about even the
t-shirts may have been stolen from somewhere.   Probably this museum
director simply reflected local good-natured humor often used when the more
sophisticated  "city folks" get too inquisitive about why "country" people
do things the way they do.
I doubt very much that anyone in a museum, anywhere in the US, would deal
in stolen property.

Anyone disagree?
Ross Weeks
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