Hi Caitlin,
You have now met the commonly known problem of Found In Collections (FIC) that (almost) all of us in the registrar/collections manager community have on a regular basis. There are a number of options and you have taken the first excellent step of checking through your records to see if there is any information about these objects. If potential collections objects were discussed by the Museum Board, you might also try checking in their meeting minutes.
The next step is to identify the objects as fully as possible and then decide (in accordance with whatever your collections policies say) whether or not you would like to keep them. In either case you will need to follow the Texas abandoned property legislation. Luckily for you there are two great resources for you to get help in both these areas.
First, the AAM Collections Stewardship Professional Network (formerly the Registrars Committee) has a great listserv, which you can join by going to their website.
The other is the Texas Association of Museum's Collections Managers Committee. They have both a website and a Facebook page.
This Forum can be very useful, but often we need to consult with our immediate colleagues!
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Janice Klein
Tempe AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-19-2020 12:40 PM
From: Caitlin Clay
Subject: identifiable objects in Collections
Good morning,
I read the forum frequently, and I was hoping you could post a question for me. I am the Registrar and Collections Manager for the Art Museum of Southeast Texas. Our curatorial department is small; it is made up of myself and our curator. That being said, our permanent collection includes close to 1,700 objects.
I have been completing inventory, and I have run into some unidentifiable objects. To my knowledge, they are not a part of the permanent collection, but no one seems to know where they came from or why they are being held in Collections storage. I've tried looking at past emails between old staff members, asking our director and other current staff, googling the artists, and looking in old files. No luck.
Does anyone else have this problem? What do you recommend I do with them? Our storage space is nearly at capacity, so I don't want to store them in Collections if I don't have to do so.
The objects include: three ceramic vessels with unidentifiable signatures, a framed print with an artist's signature, and several crayon on construction paper drawings of womens' portraits. We collect folk art, so I don't know if the portraits are from a folk artist or if they were accidentally put in Collections after an Education program ended. :/
Sincerely,
Caitlin Clay
Registrar
Art Museum of Southeast Texas
500 Main Street
Beaumont, Texas 77701
www.amset.org
Email: cclay@amset.org
Phone: (409) 832-3432
Fax: (409) 832-8508