I have never found it a workable policy that staff OR volunteers be prohibited from collecting in the same subject areas as the museums in which they work. Were this to be rigidly applied, we would have singularly few employees - and not as many volunteers. I suspect this is true of many other museums. I believe in having proper safeguards on the collection and having employees you can trust. The same is true of volunteers. Fortunately, the military history/collecting community is relatively small and the word gets around VERY quickly as to who can or cannot be trusted. What is far more dangerous is to have curators and managers who are hand in glove, not only with collectors, but with dealers. The wheeling and dealing that results is invariably more costly to the museum than any other so-called "partner". Harry Needham Canadian War Museum