Greetings, All --
I thought those of you who are in New York State, or monitor legislative activity pertaining to museums, would find the following information helpful. I contacted Peter Hirtle reading his initial message appeared on Archives and Archivists List on Friday. Peter was kind enough to encourage me to forward it and added some additional information:
The Museum Association of New York appears to support the regulations, and there is a call for comments in its favor at <http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/> (along with a request that people send in comments to make it even more procedural problematic. I understand that some of the major museums, however, have concerns about the bill.
As you surmised, I am mostly worried about the impact this could have on small historical societies.
I have a blog posting at http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2009/08/ny-deaccessioning-update-some-good-news-for-libraries-but-less-so-for-historical-societies.html about the latest developments in the deaccessioning controversy in New York.
To summarize what is a long posting, the State Board of Regents has proposed permanent regulations that would affect state-chartered historical societies and museums (but not libraries and archives). The regulations would control both when items could be deaccessioned from collections and to what purposes the proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned items could be put. (Basically, the money raised could only go for new acquisitions or preservation, but not operational or capital expenses.)
The regulations also require historical societies to file a collection management policy with the state that has acceptable statements on the institution's policies on acquiring material, loans, preservation, access, and deaccessioning. I wonder how many institutions have such a written policy in place?
Comments on the new regulations are by 25 September. I include the text of the amendment in my posting, but it has now been posted at http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/charter/327amend.html. My post contains a link to the text that is being amended.
Peter
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Peter B. Hirtle
Member, SAA IP Working Group
Senior Policy Advisor
Cornell University Library
221 Olin Library
Ithaca, NY 14853
[log in to unmask]
t. 607.255-4033
f. 607.255-2493
http://vivo.cornell.edu/individual/vivo/individual23436
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Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI
Blogging at: http://alms-jact.blogspot.com/
and
http://judyct.wordpress.com/
"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." - Mark Twain in a letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888
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