Hello All,

My institution has not deaccessioned anything in over 20 years.  Over the
last two years we have begun an active review program and have obtained full
approval to deaccession several hundred items from the collections.  These
materials are either in extremely poor or broken condition, or, have no
provenance information and no uniqueness.  The majority of the items have no
market value or a value of less than $10.00.  A few of the pieces,
specifically some furniture, could have some value.

We are at the point where we are ready to remove the items from the
collections and we are trying to make some decisions about the process.
We've made some firm decisions based on "A Legal Primer,"  "A Deaccession
Reader," "New Museum Registration Methods," and various articles that have
been written, but we're still uncertain about some points.  And we're trying
to develop a process that will not be incredibly time consuming and
cumbersome.  And oh yes, it would certainly be nice to recoup a small amount
of money that could be used to start an acquisitions fund.  Some specific
questions that we're grappling with:

In your situation, did you:
*       Publish a public notice of the deaccession disposals, and if so,
where was it published and how much detail was given?
*       Offer any of the objects back to the donors, and if so what
parameters did you set?  Anything donated in the last 10 years?  Anything
with a family provenance?  Anything with a value of more than $500? etc.
What problems did this present?
*       Offer any of the items to other museums? How much work did this end
up being and what problems did this present?  Did you sell them?  Trade
them?  Receive any kind of compensation?
*       Auction items?  And if so, did you auction them in the same town as
the museum and did you auction them in the museum's name or anonymously?

If anyone can share their stories about how they disposed of these types of
"junk" items, I would be very appreciative.  I'd be happy to hear from you
off-list, or by phone (303) 866-4693 to avoid cluttering the list.

Thank You!

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