On Fri, 23 Aug 2002, Timothy McShane wrote:

> These are interesting questions, and ones that we're on the verge of
> considering as well, as we re-develop our collections policy.
>
> I agree that a certain amount of effort has to be put in to acquire the
> pieces required to fill gaps in collections, etc., but personally,  the
> idea of proactively collecting makes me think of the 19th C. when the
> major museums of Europe were looting Egypt, or when American, Russian
> and British rapidly denuded West Coast First Nations communities of
> their cultural treasures.

While I some what agree with the percieved discomfort about re-enacting
the 19thcentury looting, I disagree with that proactive collecting could
be mistaken for that.

One of the major problems with non-proactive collections (aka "off the
street"), particularly ethnogaphic collections, is that (1) there there is
often no provenience or documentation; and (2) it is often hit or miss
incomplete.

When I first arrived at this museum some ten years ago, one of the first
things I did was to set up a wish list of things I wanted, and to start
working on some guidelines for collecting should we ever get some money
to sponsor collecting.

For instance, I know from personal experience, very few museums have
collections of modern American Indian pow-wow clothing (Milwaukee Public
Museum is the exception), so I made that a priority. But I didn't have
much restricted money to carry it out--I had some non-collections money
allotted to me if I could spend it in time, but I couldn't and so lost out
on a chance to obtain a complete Pawnee Straight Dancer's entire outfit
(he waffled too long, my Director needed the money elsewhere). But
recently we deaccessioned some major items with major bucks returned to a
Collections' only fund, and we received a bequest which pays an annual sum
for Collections related projects, so I have money to try to fulfill the
proactive collecting plan.

Moreover, we have been working with some of our anthropologists working
with Brazilian "Caboclos" in the Amazon estuary near Belem to document
contemporary culture. This includes collecting contemporary material
culture. Since this is a multi-year project, we first ask them to document
through photographs all of the relevant activities and spaces; then we
work out a plan of what they should try to collect while in the field.

So far, this has worked. We have good contemporary ethnographic
collections with good documentation. We hope to continue it.

Thomas W. Kavanagh
Curator of Collections
Mathers Museum
Indiana University

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