Collection Conundrums

1
Collection Conundrums!

• Solving Collection Management Mysteries

2
The Perfect Accession

• Hiram Powers
• The Greek Slave
• Courtesy of The Newark Museum, Gift of Franklin
  Murphy, Jr., 1926
• 26.2755

3
Accession

• Accession, accessioned, accessioning
• Accessioning is the two-part process of
  acquiring an object (acquisition) and documenting
  an object (registration).
• The two parts of the process hinge on transfer
  of title to the museum.

4
Acquisition vs. Accession

• An acquisition is anything acquired by a
  museum.
• It only becomes an accession if it goes
  through the museums formal process for accepting
  objects into the permanent collection.

5
Registration

• Registration is the process of developing and
  maintaining an immediate, brief, and permanent
  means of identifying an object for which the
  institution has permanently or temporarily
  assumed responsibility.
• To register an object is to record it
  according to the registration system that the
  museum has developed.

6
Accession number, catalog number

• An accession number is a control number,
  unique to an object, the purpose of which is
  identification, not description. A catalog
  number is a number used to classify or describe
  an object within a system.
• A given object at a given museum often does
  not require both numbers.

7
Abandoned Property

• Property to which the owner has relinquished
  all rights.

8
Doorstep Donation

• Abandoned property, left at the museum without
  documented intent but in a situation where intent
  to donate can be clearly inferred, has been
  described as doorstep donation.
• This term takes away the confusion caused
  by the more general term abandoned.

9
Undocumented Objects and FIC

• Imari bowl
• Found with no indication of source
• Given a tracking number
• Discovered to be an unprocessed part of a 1988
  gift in 2008

10
Undocumented Objects

• Undocumented objects are those objects
• similar to collections and found in collection
• areas with no numbers, no information in
• their housing, nor any characteristics that
• might connect them to documentation.

11
FIC

• Found in Collection objects are undocumented
• objects that remain after all attempts to
  reconcile
• them to existing records of permanent collection
• and loan objects have failed.

12
Old Loans

• Lost artist, lost owner
• Mildred Jerome
• Eve, life size!
• Loaned in 1935

13
Old Loans

• Old loans are objects for which there is
  documentation (possibly with terms expired)
  indicating that an owner intended to lend the
  material.
• For a loan to be an old loan all contact
  with the lender must have been lost.

14
Permanent Loan

• A permanent loan is a long term loan with no
  definite termination date.
• The term is an oxymoron, and should not be
  used.

15
Deaccession Risk Chart