Pam, 
You've completely missed the point and you are wrong. The volunteer 
overstepped his bounds, acted improperly, and probably is in violation of the 
museum's ethics and collections policies. 

The volunteer wasn't "put in the awkward position" --he put himself there. 
The museum made a well reasoned and conscious decision to deaccession by 
disposal of inappropriate material. The volunteer had NO business interfering. 
Then he made the completely inappropriate decision to pawn the material off 
on another museum and misrepresented himself and the donor of the 
collection. These are actionable offenses.

If this volunteer had a problem with his institution's policies and proceedures, 
he should have taken the matter up with 1st his supervisor and 2nd with 
museum administration. 

And I reiterate...The museum did nothing wrong and has nothing for which it 
must take responsibility...other perhaps than retraining that volunteer as to 
what constitutes proper ethical practice. 

Diane


On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 12:52:49 EST, Pamela Silvestri 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 
...snip...
> 
>Considering the circumstances, I believe the volunteer acted in an  
>appropriate manner. He was put in the awkward position of having to make 
the  decision 
>to remove the articles from the trash. And then, not wanting to retain  the 
>materials himself, donated them to a place that could care for them,  etc.
> 
>The original museum should not 'blame the victim' here and needs to admit  
>their mistakes and error in judgement and take responsibility for them. 
> 
>Pam

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).