[NHCOLL-L:338] RE: Further on the accession by committee question

[Michael Cooper]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jane MacKnight [mailto:jmacknight at CINCYMUSEUM.ORG]
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 3:59 PM
To: NHCOLL-L
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:334] Further on the accession by committee question


>Thanks for those who have responded and I'd still appreciate additional
>comments.  The issue for me is that as a merged museum, Cincinnati
>Historical Society, Cincinnati Natural History Museum and Cincinnati
>Children's Museum, I need to have a single system for evaluating all
>acquisitions.  Typically we have between 200-300 new accessions
annually of
>which 90-95% are history objects, printed works and manuscripts for the
>library.  Natural history accessions result from donations and field
>collections.  

This is a very similar situation to our own where an Acquisition Review
Panel sees and discusses all proposed acquisitions. The system has
worked very well for 5 year now. There's no problem with natural history
stuff and never any need, as someone has dramatically suggested, for
keepers to brings thousands of insects to the panel. It's merely a
question of informing us that such and such is to be acquired, we have
the space for it, there are such and such conservation considerations
(the stuff might need to go through the Conservation Section's freezer
for instance). It keeps everyone up to speed on what is going on and
folks from marketing, access, exhibitions and so forth have an
opportunity to assess the potential for publicity, for education use,
exhibitions, etc.

>Natural history curators would love to have a separate system
>for their acquisitions but logistically it would be a fiasco.  However,
we
>do not have the registration/collection management staff to manage
parallel
>structures for different types of collections.

And why should you? Acquisition and accession systems can easily be
devised that will work for any type of object. Trouble is many natural
history keepers see their collections as "specimens" and refuse to see
any as "museum objects." To them one example of blobbus maximus is as
good as any other. To history keepers, for instance, such an attitude is
heresy: each object is unique. A balance has to be struck.

>We don't have a Collections Committee of our Board.  The director, who
comes
>from a history background, is used to the committee system and only
wants to
>see those acquisitions that may provoke budget, political, space issues
>etc..  

How can you tell which will provoke which reaction? And how can you
trust the acquisitive keeper (for example) to be truthful when they say
they don't need a panel to determine whether there's space available -
of course there's space available....

>Basically, I see a committee of collections staff who would review
>all incoming acquisitions.  Thoughts?

Works for us! In theory we include education, marketing, etc. too. In
practice they rarely turn up but they do get the minutes of the
meetings.

regards

Mick

Michael P. Cooper
Registrar, Nottingham Museums & Galleries
michaelc at notmusbhy.demon.co.uk