We, too, are developing policy to deal with this issue; I'm always glad
to see deaccessioning issues come up for discussion. Please post
replies to the list!
I'm a bit rusty on the differences between American and Canadian
museums (so if anyone feels I'm making incorrect statements here, please
feel free to correct me!), but as I understanding it, most American
museums are privately owned, while very few in Canada are private.
Incorporation as a non-profit museum in Canada means collections are
essentially owned by the Crown in trust for the public, and that
individual museums are custodians of their collections, not owners. As
such, in addition to ethical considerations, Canadian museums have legal
issues relating to the handling of public property in making
deaccessions, that I believe most American museums do not have
(again--please correct me here if I'm wrong!)
I can't speak for my current institution (as policy is not yet in
place), but the last museum I worked at had a definite policy against
returning items to donors. This was on the advice of a representative
from CCRA (Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency--kinda the Canadian
equivalent of the IRS). We were advised that it would not only be a
direct violation of law to return an item for which a tax receipt had
been issued, but it would also have the appearance of impropriety if an
item were returned to a donor even when a tax receipt wasn't issued
(ie., the passing of an item from the common domain of a museum
collection to the hands of an individual through a non-public
transaction). I don't suppose there would be any harm in informing a
donor that an item they donated will be sold or auctioned so that they
would have an opportunity to purchase the item--while I was there, we
didn't dispose of any items with a known donor through sale. Of course,
certain pieces such as the quilt Betty described, with a known history
and relevance to the institutional mandate, would not be considered for
deaccessioning.
Here in Alberta, all museums that have received support from the
province (ie., via operating grants, funding for summer staff positions,
etc.) are obliged to offer deaccessioned objects to other museums in the
province before they can be considered for sale. This is not much of an
issue for us in disposing of broken and/or incomplete items with no
provenance and no market value, but does cause us some additional effort
in trimming our collection of pieces outside of our mandate, or pieces
(such as sadirons, typewriters, sewing machines, etc.) which are heavily
duplicated in our collection, and are likely well represented in other
museums as well, and may have a value in the private market. We're
still trying to come up with a strategy to accommodate that
requirement--in the meantime, we just aren't disposing of anything
through sale.
Cheers,
------------------------------------------------------------
Tim McShane, Assistant--Cultural History
Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery
1302 Bomford Crescent S.W.
Medicine Hat, AB T1A 5E6
(403) 502-8587
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