Because you are a college museum with a parent organization who is 
probably cultivating potential donors (not necessarily for your museum 
but because they might be willing to build a field house), you will need 
to deal with the administration and make sure that you will not be 
offending those potential donors or upsetting your administration by 
disposing of the objects.  When alums or other donors give gifts to the 
college or the Museum, those gifts belong to the college and 
consequently have to be disposed of with the college's consent.  We have 
encountered similar situations and here are some of the things you might 
want to do:
1.  Make sure you have a collections policy that clearly outlines your 
collecting plan.  This should be approved by your college's board of 
trustees.
2.  Make sure that the right administrators have a copy of the 
collections policy--particularly those departments that accept 
gifts--for us that is our department of Institutional Advancement.
3.  Additionally, you need to keep your college officials happy, so we 
created another policy--Art on Campus--that clearly explained that if a 
gift was received by the college that they wanted to keep the museum did 
not have to accept it, but the museum would be happy to place it on 
campus as part of a campus beautification project.  These objects are 
not accessioned by the museum, however, we do do an inventory on them 
(you can have a student do this), and we inform the administration if 
anything needs conservation.  In our policy, we clearly remind the 
administration that we will not be held responsible for any expenses 
incurred with the care of these objects.  Make sure everyone has a copy 
of the policy--you may also want to remind them of it on occasion as it 
is bound to disappear into a file cabinet!
4.  Occasionally, the College accepts a gift that does not meet our 
collectioning plan, but that has educational possibilities.  These 
objects, such as some inexpensive Chinese snuff bottles (our collection 
is North and South America), are accepted by the museum but are placed 
in our education collection.   This collection is great for teaching, 
developing museum in a box ideas, please touch for local schools, or 
having students practice developing an exhibit.
5.  If you do decide to dispose of objects and there is no objection 
from your administration, you will still need to check with your 
chartering institution, which is probably the State Board of Education 
and make sure that you are following their guidelines.

Fiona M. Dejardin, Ph.D.
Director, The Yager Museum of Art and Culture
Hartwick College
Oneonta, NY 13820
607-431-4827

Heather-Marie Wells wrote:

> You might need to check with your state laws.  I know Arkansas 
> recently passed a Museum Property Act that clearly explains what a 
> museum can do with:
>
> abandoned loans, expired loan argeements, or loans in the possession 
> of the museum for more than 10 years without documentation, items 
> found in collections, and items in collection with some level of 
> documentation (at least date of discover) for more than 7 years
>
> I know there are some states with similar laws, but I can't remember 
> which ones they are, sorry.
>
> Heather Marie Wells
>
>> From: Linda McAllister <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Questions
>> Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 13:29:49 -0400
>>
>> Does your museum have a gift acceptance policy?  If you don't, you might
>> want to do so right away before the next delivery occurs (this happens
>> to us all the time -- we're just now turning away well meaning but
>> useless gifts).  I would think that, if you did not accept the gift
>> yourself and you have no way to identify the donor, you should be able
>> to dispose of it as you wish.  I don't know if others on our list agree
>> with me or not.
>>
>>
>> Linda McAllister, CFRE
>> Curator of Advancement
>> The Florida Air Museum
>> Office:  863-644-2431 ext. 142
>> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of lyrehcna
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 12:50 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Questions
>>
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>>
>> I have some eithcal questions for you.
>>
>>
>> Approximately 18 months ago the physical plant delivered a work to my
>> gallery while I was away.  They had received a request asking that "a
>> piece of art" be "returned" to the gallery.  The "art" in question (a
>> 2-d papier mache bird connected to a stick "frame" by twine with a "made
>> in Philippines" sticker on it; it is clearly from an import store) does
>> not belong to the gallery, and I cannot find the rightful owner.  I
>> would like to offer it to a local student for their annual auction, but
>> I am not sure if that is, indeed, ethical.  Any thought of what I should
>> do with the piece?
>>
>> I also have another query regarding deaccessioning.  Ca. 20 years ago my
>> college was given 3 works by a deceased alumnus artist's family.  There
>> is no documentation, and the works were never accessioned into the
>> gallery's collection.  The works were recently "returned" to the
>> gallery, where they were placed a storage hallway (as we do not have
>> available storage space.)  When I found them, I phoned the appropriate
>> administrative offices who said, that the family had given the works to
>> the college to keep or sell and that the then-director (ca. 15-20 years
>> ago) had expressed interest in accessioning the work, so they are
>> considered the gallery's.  They were exhibited in an alumni show here,
>> but otherwise, I can find no information to change my mind.  I do not
>> feel that we should accession them.  Am I bound by the fact that a
>> previous director expressed an interest in accessioning them?
>>
>> To make matters worse, we have no board and there is no collections
>> policy or manual.  I am currently drafting the latter now, but I am
>> itching to do something about these works before then.
>>
>> In fairness to my institution, I would like to reamin anonymous on this
>> post.  I would; however, be more than willing to discuss this with
>> anyone off-list.
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
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