Anne-
You should contact the AAM Curator's Committee.  They worked through a
fairly comprehensive ethics policy for individual curators a couple of
years back.  A curator, or most any other staff member, should never
collect in an area that competes with their instititution.  If in doubt
then it is better to discuss the bread bowl.  This not only protects the
employee, but also can help the intstitution demonstrate to donors that
everything is on the up and up.

Frank E. Thomson
[log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From:   Anne Lane [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Wednesday, April 07, 1999 10:39 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Staff Collecting

We are in the process of revamping our collections policy, and one of the
areas we would like to deal with more comprehensively is that of personal
collecting by staff.  We are, of course, particularly concerned with
situations where staff members collect actively in areas where the museum
also collects; in our case, our collecting scope is broad enough that it is
proving rather difficult to set realistic parameters.  We would appreciate
hearing from other institutions both what their published policies are and
what, if any, difficulties have arisen with implementation of these
policies.  It is one thing to subscribe to a general code of ethics; it is
quite another to try to determine whether the piece of contemporary pottery
purchased from a local artisan for mixing bread dough has to be offered to
the institution's collections committee before being pressed into use.
Help!
Anne T. Lane
Curatorial Assistant
Museum of York County
4621 Mount Gallant Road
Rock Hill, SC 29715
803-329-2121, ext 104
[log in to unmask]