[NHCOLL-L:4906] Found in Collection online class starts Monday

[Helen Alten]

  *There is still space available in the Found in the Collection online 
class offered by Northern States Conservation Center that starts on Monday.

MS303: Found in the Collection: Orphans, Old Loans and Abandoned Property*
Instructor: *Lin Nelson-Mayson*
Date: Aug 2 through Sep 10, 2010**
Price: $475
Location: online at www.museumclasses.org
*
Description:*
Every museum has a few stray items. Some lost tags long ago. Others turn 
up as surprises during inventories. A few are all that remain from 
long-ago exhibits. While you'll want to keep some, others may be 
deteriorating. Even worse, some pose significant hazards for staff and 
the rest of the collection. All raise legal and professional questions. 
How do you deal with objects that have no records? Or loans from 
unidentified or deceased lenders? Found in the Collection addresses how 
to identify abandoned objects and old loans. It further covers the 
application of state laws and rules for identifying owners or 
establishing ownership.

*Course Outline:*
1. Introduction
2. Definitions and legislation
3. Identification and process - Abandoned property and "Found in the 
Collection"
4. Identification and process - Old Loans
5. Systems to regulate future problems
6. Conclusion

*Required Textbook*
The New Museum Registration Methods, 4th edition. Edited by Rebecca A. 
Buck & Jean Allman Gilmore. 427 pages (American Association of Museums; 
1998) ISBN: 0-931201-31-4. Available through American Association of 
Museums. $55.00 (non-member cost) $40.00 (member cost)

*Logistics:*
Participants in Found in the Collection work through sections on their 
own. Instructor Lin Nelson-Mayson is available for scheduled email 
support. Materials and resources include online literature, slide 
lectures and dialog between students and online chats led by the 
instructor. The course is limited to 20 participants.


Found in the Collection runs four weeks. To reserve a spot in the 
course, please pay at http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html If you 
have trouble please contact Helen Alten at helen at collectioncare.org

*Student Comments for MS303: Found in the Collection:*
It covered situations which I am encountering in my work. It showed me 
where to look to answer questions about the legal aspects of FIC 
objects. It made me aware of the weakness of current Abandoned Property 
laws in my state (and apparently most others)... I found the lectures 
and readings very helpful.

I liked being able to work on the materials at my own pace. The feedback 
from the instructor was very helpful. My favorite part of the course 
were the online chats. These were very engaging and it was great way to 
discuss issues and find solutions to the challenges our collections pose.

I thought the course was very helpful and the technology worked 
wonderfully for me. The lectures were very helpful in giving an overview 
and did a good job of summarizing the major points. I thought the 
readings were especially helpful in gaining different perspectives about 
the issues. It was interesting to see other institutions' policies and 
procedures.

Thank you for facilitating this course. Lin, our instructor, was very 
helpful and insightful. She asked very good questions, which helped me 
really think carefully through all of the steps of handling old loans, 
FICs and abandoned property. While I will be making some revisions to 
our policies and procedures, the course did confirm that many of the 
policies and procedures we have in place are very good. I certainly feel 
empowered to deal with these objects now! I think that the chats were 
extremely helpful for hashing out the issues and gave me much-needed 
reassurance that I was not the only one dealing with them.

I liked: a) how much content was covered; b) how the information 
presented could be applied to a variety of museums across the board 
(i.e. state museums, not-for-profit, and yes, private-owned); c) the 
ease that we could still interact as a class even though we were all 
over the country.
It brought forth a lot of things that we haven't been doing as a museum...


*The Instructor:*
*Lin Nelson-Mayson*, with over 25 years of museum experience at small 
and large institutions, is director of the University of Minnesota's 
Goldstein Museum of Design. Prior to that, she was the director of 
ExhibitsUSA, a nonprofit exhibition touring organization that annually 
tours over 30 art and humanities exhibitions across the country. For 
five years, she was a coordinator or judge for the American Association 
of Museums' Excellence in Exhibitions Competition. She currently serves 
on the exhibition committee for the National Sculpture Society. Ms. 
Nelson-Mayson has extensive experience with the planning, preparation, 
research and installation of exhibitions. Ms Nelson-Mayson's experience 
includes teaching museum studies and museology courses. Her particular 
interest is the needs of small museums.

Her credentials include the following;

    * An MFA from The Ohio State University in sculpture and critical
      writing
    * A BFA from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in painting.
    * Work as a curator for the Ross County Historic Society
      (Chillicothe, Ohio), the Art Museum of South Texas (Corpus
      Christi), the Columbia Museum of Art (South Carolina), and the
      Minnesota Museum of American Art.


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