Sara, 

Whether you're overreacting or not I don't know. But the fact that you
seem eager to address this is a good thing. Whatever gets accepted and
accessioned in your collection today will be the responsibility to care
for of those who come after you. Therefore, new acquisitions have to fit
into a mission and a collection plan. If you accept objects as gifts
without history and without paperwork you set yourself and next
collection managers up for a nightmare. (I don't think you can put a
right or wrong percentage on the number of insider gifts; it all depends
...)
It sounds like you already have a mission statement for your
institution. Review it, and based on this mission create a collections
policy that clearly defines what your area of collecting and new
acquisitions will be. Get your board involved in this process, and they
need to sign off on the final document. This is a process of education
for all, and once you have a clear collecting mandate you can accept or
reject offers, based on this document.
This may be a bit of a process and take some time, but from what you
write in your post, it will be well worth the effort.

These are my two cents. Good luck. And if you're interested I'll be
happy to send you that section of our collections policy that defines
what we (at Vizcaya) will and will not collect.

Remko Jansonius
Collections and Archives Manager
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens


-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Sara Thum
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 5:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: board members as donors

I apologize if this has been covered...

In the small history museum and regional art center that I have recently

started working in as Collection Manager, I am experiencing a high 
volume of object donations from board members and docents.

Is there a recommended percentage a museum should allow for "insider" 
donations?  Is this typical of a small museum - this experience is new 
to me as I have only worked with state archives before.  It is getting 
interesting as folks that are attached to the museum are attached to 
their objects, and convincing everyone that the collection should follow

the mission of the museum is becoming a task.  Actually, most often I 
have board members and docents bringing in Suzy Q-from-down-the-street's

stuff and of course they never want to fill out paperwork and have no 
history on the objects, etc.

Am I overreacting?  Any ideas about how to handle this?
Thank you so much for your help in advance!

-- 
Sara E. Harris Thum, Collections Manager
Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center
300 South Pepper Street, Christiansburg, VA 24073
(540) 382-5644
[log in to unmask]

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