Hi Laura!
This is a great question and one museums struggle with. I think what you're looking for is a revised Scope of Collection Statement, rather than a separate policy. This statement should serve as a litmus test for acquisitions and deaccessions: This does/does not fit into the scope of our collection.
I've been teaching and writing about Scope of Collection for about a decade. If you're a member of AASLH, go to their resources section to find a webinar I wrote about 10 years ago (it is old already!) about how to create a Scope of Collection Statement. In my experience, a SCS, when crafted in the traditional NPS manner as a description of your collection, does not help to advance the relevance of the museum's collection in the present and future. If you continue to state that you collect what you have been, and are, collecting, your collection will never change, become more inclusive, serve an evolving mission, or become an effective tool for engagement.
Here's an example:
Your museum was founded by a wealthy entrepreneur and contains an excellent fine art collection, a superior regional history archive, and the museum's mission is to serve its local community. If the local community were formerly peers of this founder, but now they're refugees from Somalia, and you've revised your mission to be more inclusive of your community, your collection should keep pace with that revision. Let's also say that the founding entrepreneur was in the railroad business and also collected model trains which he bequeathed to the museum; and since no one at the time felt they could decline the bequest, your collection also has model trains.
So, a traditional scope of collection statement might read like "The MUSEUM collects fine art, historical manuscripts and archive materials that chronicle the history of the region, and model trains." You're going to continue to use this scope statement as a litmus test for your acquisitions and deaccessions. Which means, if someone wants to donate model trains, you have no legitimate reason to decline them - you've stated that you collect trains.
This traditional SCS keeps the collection exactly what it is. My strategy is to craft the SCS as an aspirational statement of what the collection COULD BE or what you WANT IT TO BE in order to support your mission, which has evolved over time. Therefore, you can eliminate the trains from the SCS which allows you to decline future offers, and also to deaccession the trains should you choose to do so.
A revised statement might be something like: the MUSEUM collects fine art and manuscript/archive material that illustrates/preserves/chronicles/whatever the changing community.
Note - no trains - supports mission, still collects the important content that supports your mission, and has more inclusive language. So when you're in a collections committee meeting, you can ask "does this potential acquisition support stories about our changing community" "do we have materials that already support that story?" "if we accept this 56th example of the construction of suburbia that enabled white flight are we taking up valuable space that could house materials that tell the story of our Somalian refugee community?" This is the tough stuff you want to discuss in your committee meetings. Not - "it's a train, we collect trains - accepted."
Hope this is helpful!
Erin.
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Erin Richardson PhD
Principal
Erin Richardson Consulting
Cooperstown NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2019 07:07 AM
From: Laura Vookles
Subject: Collecting Policies
Do you have a separate collecting policy (as opposed to collections management)?
Our museum--which collects American art, decorative arts as related to our 1877 house, and material culture--has never had a separate collecting policy. There is one short section of our collections management policy that outlines the types of things that are in the collection and gives a general sense that these are the parameters for collecting. We are about to update the collections policy and need to decide whether we should have a separate document guiding acquisitions, versus their management.
If you have a collecting policy, or something that governs acquisition priorities under a different name, I would love to see examples.
Sincerely,