AN interesting thread this. Disposal routes depend on many factors, but the
principal thing is the importance of your collection, or parts of it, to
others. Is it important enough to transfer to the public domain? If so where
is the best place for it to go? Is it important enough to be kept in one
piece? Or could it be broken up, the wheat separated from the chaff? Should
your books and documents go to one place and the objects to another?
Libraries, archives and museums have quite different attitudes and
abilities.
Museums that adhere to nationally agreed standards of acquisition,
preservation and access ("Registered Museums") abide by strict codes of
ethics and procedural standards. They will generally not accept items with
onerous conditions imposed by donors. They will not accept items on
"permanent loan". Rather, they will enter into a loan agreement which
requires annual confirmation and renewal at stated intervals (usually no
more than 5 years). This way objects and owners can be kept in touch.
There's nothing as bad from the museum's point of view as loans whose owners
have died or moved away without forwarding addresses. There's increasing
pressure now to maintain contact and reaffirm the conditions of the loan on
a reglar basis.
Donations are just that. Once given you can't ask for them back! You can say
the museum doesn't own them, they hold them in trust for the public and for
the future. As someone pointed out you should only give items to museums if
you can live with never owning them again! In theory if a Registered museum
disposes of items they should first seek to retain them in the public
domain. That is, first refusal if given to another Registered museum (or
equivalent if going abroad). Only when such avenues are exhausted would the
original donor be contacted to see if they want the items back.
Public museums' collections are not classed as assets as might be in the
case of a privately owned or commercial museum. Hence the failure of a
public museum (say because the funding body refused to fund it properly)
should not result in the sale of collections as was the case with Chatterley
Whitfield. Nor should a public museum sell donations. (Purchased items are a
different matter and there are many cases where collections have been
rationalized by selling purchases for the good of the remaining collection.)
The matter of dispersal is not so much of a problem to my mind. Yes, it
might be good if local material was kept in the locality, but is there a
suitable instiution locally that can guarantee preservation and access to
researchers? Can you say that researchers are solely based in the locality?
I think not. Hence the idea of travelling to see a collection is not a
problem, it's just an accepted part of the researcher's life!
Collections should therefore ideally go to a place where they are
appreciated, preserved and made available; wherever that may be. The
alternative is to adopt the principle that you had fun collecting and
collating this stuff, so why not give others the opportunity to do more of
the same by disposing of it to other collectors with similar interests?
Perhaps a garage sale??
Mick
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