I agree with deaccessioning meaning "formally removing an object/item from
the permanent collections" rather than "disposal".

People tend to think disposal is the only option, rather than thinking of
"recycling" an object by using it in a different capacity.

If the object is no longer to be part of the permanent collection, I would
strongly recommend going through the deaccessioning process.

Does your museum have a collections policy and manual in place? That is the
purpose of such a document, to provide guidelines for situations such as
this.

To help clarify the question for your situation, I suggest checking
professional literature. For example:

The American Association of Museums (AAM) bookstore/website www.aam-us.org
lists several excellent professional titles for collections management,
including:
*The New Museum Registration Methods, by Buck & Gimore
*Registration Methods for the Small Museum, by Dan Reibel
*Registrars on Record: Essays on Museum Collections Management, edited by
Mary Case, sponsored by the Registrars Committee of the AAM

If your office or museum doesn't have any of these, I'd suggest purchasing
one for reference.

If that is beyond your budget, then see if a neighboring museum's registrar
has a copy of any or all of these books and if they would let you borrow one
or more of them, even if that neighbor is many miles away or in another
state. (Snail mail still has its uses, as well as other technological
advances.)

Or perhaps your regional museums federation or association has a technical
reference library and would loan you one of these books.

The Please Touch! children's museum in Philadelphia has a multi-tiered
collections system in place. You might contact them to see how they do it.

Nancy Powell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Stewart" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 5:16 PM
Subject: "Study" Collections and deaccessioning


> We are trying to organize our various holdings at our museum.  There are
> several different collections here that have been used in the past.  There
> is of course the permanent collection where all items are formally
> accessioned.  Then we have a couple of other collections with various
other
> levels of registration.  My question is this:  An item is in your
permanent
> collection, but for whatever reason the Collections committee has seen fit
> that the item does not exactly fit the strict requirements for the
> Permanent collection. We do not want to "dispose" of it, just "reclassify"
> it to our Education or Exhibit Prop collection so that it may be used more
> appropriately.  I define deaccession as "formally removing an item from
the
> PERMANENT collection" while others here have associated the term
> with "Disposal of an item from the permantent collection", which to their
> understadning meant the museum getting rid of it.  Does a formal
> deaccession need to take place if an unrestricted item is simply being put
> in an Education Collection, not thrown away, sold, transferred or in any
> other way disposed of?
>
> Also, what kind of levels of registration do some of you go to for an item
> that is in a "study" or "education" collection?
>
> Steven Stewart
>
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