Sara, Whether you're overreacting or not I don't know. But the fact that you seem eager to address this is a good thing. Whatever gets accepted and accessioned in your collection today will be the responsibility to care for of those who come after you. Therefore, new acquisitions have to fit into a mission and a collection plan. If you accept objects as gifts without history and without paperwork you set yourself and next collection managers up for a nightmare. (I don't think you can put a right or wrong percentage on the number of insider gifts; it all depends ...) It sounds like you already have a mission statement for your institution. Review it, and based on this mission create a collections policy that clearly defines what your area of collecting and new acquisitions will be. Get your board involved in this process, and they need to sign off on the final document. This is a process of education for all, and once you have a clear collecting mandate you can accept or reject offers, based on this document. This may be a bit of a process and take some time, but from what you write in your post, it will be well worth the effort. These are my two cents. Good luck. And if you're interested I'll be happy to send you that section of our collections policy that defines what we (at Vizcaya) will and will not collect. Remko Jansonius Collections and Archives Manager Vizcaya Museum and Gardens -----Original Message----- From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sara Thum Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 5:24 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: board members as donors I apologize if this has been covered... In the small history museum and regional art center that I have recently started working in as Collection Manager, I am experiencing a high volume of object donations from board members and docents. Is there a recommended percentage a museum should allow for "insider" donations? Is this typical of a small museum - this experience is new to me as I have only worked with state archives before. It is getting interesting as folks that are attached to the museum are attached to their objects, and convincing everyone that the collection should follow the mission of the museum is becoming a task. Actually, most often I have board members and docents bringing in Suzy Q-from-down-the-street's stuff and of course they never want to fill out paperwork and have no history on the objects, etc. Am I overreacting? Any ideas about how to handle this? Thank you so much for your help in advance! -- Sara E. Harris Thum, Collections Manager Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center 300 South Pepper Street, Christiansburg, VA 24073 (540) 382-5644 [log in to unmask] ========================================================= 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). ========================================================= 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).