As the correspondence lately will confirm, valuation of collections is a
touchy subject indeed. It is true that the US museum community got a
scare when the finance accounting wizards threatened to require all
museums to capitalize collections as assets before a valid audit could be
done, but, for reasons evident to everyone, they backed down on that
after some very hard work by AAM and others in the museum community.
 
In attempting to place a value on collections for insurance purposes,
many of us have operated in the dark. Do you include the value of the time
and resources used in collecting, preparation, conservation? the overhead
costs of storage systems and materials expended? the staff time required
to keep things in good condition and available? And how do you factor in
uniqueness, irreplaceability, scholarly/scientific value? And just how DO
you deal with the fact that market prices for some collections (e.g.
vertebrate fossils) can be unbelievably inflated in response to fads and
fashions--is THAT the value standard you use? Do you peg values to market
trends? Do I have the answers to these? Don't I wish.....
 
Let me put in another plug for the Manchester symposium on "Value and
Valuation of Natural History Collections" next April. This promises to be
an excellent forum. The coordinator is C.W.Pettitt at the Manchester
Museum; let me know if you need his address. I don't know if this will
touch or archaeological valuation or not, but he will.
 
I think the problem is that many of us grew up in this field hearing that
our holdings were supposed to be above financial valuation because their
other values were transcendent (research, publication, documentation,
cultural patrimony, education, etc.). Now, between disasters,
administrative abandonment, and rising legitimate and black market valies
for many collections, we are being told that we MUST have some idea of
financial value as well---and we aren't prepared for that nearly as well
as the art world seems to be. Some insurers and appraisers have taken
this as a cause, but not nearly enough. Maybe we need to set up some kind
of consortium to look at the issues and come up with some practical
guidelines for identifying experts, guidelines, and resources--not just a
panel here and and panel somewhere else two years later, but a dedicated
effort to eliminate some of the ambiguity and confusion surrounding this
issue.
 
Sally Shelton
Collections Conservation Specialist
San Diego Natural History Museum