Loren has an excellent point. Preventive conservation is NOT sexy. It's
hard to compete with robot dinosaurs, architectural wonders, or things
that can have a plaque put on them with the donor's name. And people tend
to associate conservation with gazillion-dollar wonders like the cleaning
of the Sistine ceiling, overlooking the fact that the windows are STILL
left open there! Again, and again, it gets back to communication.
 
As for "consumable" collections: Arsenic is a problem in mounts and
skin-based things UP THROUGH the 1960s, not just IN the 1960s. So it is
indeed NOT appropriate to deaccession old datafree things to the discovery
room. There's a slew of other preservatives used as well. I think that
collections professionals and educators alike should plan teaching and
demonstration collections carefully, not treat them as the last stop
before the landfill or the way to dodge the deaccessioning dilemma.
 
Jessie's comments about ethical dilemmas echoes the Getty lecture. If we
are pledged to follow a code of ethics that puts us at odds with the
mission of the museum...the the writers of the code of ethics ought to
question and be questioned. Ethics follow fads as much as law and policy,
and need reexamining if they put their followers in untenable positions.
Obviously, you can't allow a whole collection to be subjected to consuming
uses such as permanent exhibit and teaching. You can't keep whole
collections locked away from everyone except the conservator. It all comes
down to good preventive conservation, good communication, and looking for
creative ways to let the object or images of it communicate to the widest
audience. Ethics should embrace legitimate use with its concomitatnt wear
and tear as well as preservation. It was not all that long ago that
many were viewing preventive conservation with a cold and fishy
eye; now it is increasingly preached as gospel.
 
The collections are not the final purpose. Their use, now or in the
future, is, and it is that use that we are (I hope) trying to facilitate,
so that the community will (1) support museums and collections, (2) be
able to make informed decisions on preservation, whether of houses or of
habitats, (3) reap the benefits of scholarship and perhaps stimulate the
next generation to be part of the community. Where IS the next generaton
of us, anyway?
 
Sally Shelton