 Our host, Susan Berger, on behalf of the FAI. Hi, everyone. I want to welcome you. And I want to let you know that two things. One is that the slides will be available when I post the recording. And that will be in a few days. And you can tell that the recording and the PowerPoint slides have been posted because the advertisement on the home page of our website will no longer show this webinar. That's the sign that I've posted it. And you can look in the archives and find it. And if you have any questions, I'm going to be monitoring the chat box. And I'll make sure that they get put in a place so that we can answer questions at the end of the presentation. So don't worry. If you have questions, we'll get to them. And there have been lots of disasters. If you need any assistance, you can call the National Heritage Responders hotline. And they're happy to help. They've been really busy, but they can be busier. You can always keep up with our community on Facebook, at Twitter. And we also have a listserv. And if you're not on it, you can join it by going to this website here. And if you have questions, I have an army of people that answer questions. So please let go to the website. You need to register and answer questions. And you'll get answers from real people. And you can contact me anytime. This is my email address. And coming up in November, we have two webinars, one on digitization for small institutions and one on Niagara. And then in December, we're going to have one on issues dealing with ivory. So stay tuned for that. That should be posted very shortly. And without further ado, I'm going to hand this over to Joby Zink. She's going to do today's webinar. Thanks. And remember, I'll be catching your questions. So thanks. Go ahead, Joby. Thank you, Susan. So I'm Joby Zink. I am going to present. What is this, problem solving or solving problems found in collections? I am the registrar at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia. I've been in this position for just over three years. Prior to that, I was the registrar and senior collections manager at the Jewish Museum of Maryland in Baltimore. And I also have worked at the Goldsmith Museum of Judaica in Baltimore, the Smithsonian American Art Museum. And I got my start in a small local historic house Brinkwood Manor in my hometown. Today, we're going to be talking about all sorts of things found in collection. So what does it mean when something is found in collection? Shouldn't everything be found in the collection? I think that's every registrar's dream to know that absolutely everything in the collection is exactly where it belongs. But sometimes you find something in your collection, something that you didn't know you had, something without an accession number, or something that really shouldn't be there. Today, we're going to talk about what you need to do when you come across any of those things. But first, let's take a poll. Can I have the first poll? OK, so just to get a sense how many people work in your collections, OK, numbers are coming in. Ooh, numbers are changing. They seem to be across the board with how many people work in your collections. And I should say that by work in your collections, you can include volunteers and interns if they are doing collections work. But it does seem that we have people working in collections. You're not all by yourselves, which is great. The reason I'm asking this question is so that you know that it is easier to work through a problem with somebody else just to even ask, what do you think this is? If you have just one other person to ask, you might find that your answers come to you more quickly. If you don't, don't worry to do it. You can still solve your found in collections problems. So we're going to move on to found in collections. You are not alone. Everyone has found in collections in their collections. It doesn't matter what kind of museum you work in, whether you are the biggest of the big or the smallest of the small, you're likely to come across a found in collections object. And found in collections objects are not unique to any type of museum. So art museums have them, so do history museums and natural history museums and historic houses and everything in between. Discovering that you have a found in collections object does not make you a bad registrar. Let's just get that right out in the open. And in fact, the fact that you have recognized that it's found in collection means that you're doing a pretty good job as the registrar. The only thing that would make you a bad registrar at this point is if you choose to completely, entirely ignore the problem and pretend that it doesn't exist. So don't do that. I'll walk you through how to get through it. But first, let's define a found in collection. Found in collection or thick, according to the museum registrations methods, fifth edition, a.k.a. the registrar's Bible, a found in collection is a term used by a museum to refer to undocumented objects that remain without status after all attempts to reconcile them to existing records of permanent collection and loan objects are completed. So you got to do some work before you can completely decide that you have a found in collection. Identifying and resolving found in collections will help you prepare for many other activities, developing or revising your collections management policy or CMP, completing an inventory project, preparing for a map, cap, or accreditation assessment, tremendously helpful in writing grant proposals and advocating for expanded collection space. You can talk about the strengths of your collections and also identify your weaknesses. And that's a great tool to have to identify what your weaknesses are, especially when you're talking to staff and board members. And also by talking to staff and board members, you're going to learn something about your collections that you didn't know that you had. So what could FICC items be? Like any UFO sighting, there is often a good and logical explanation to what a FICC might be. Sometimes it's fairly straightforward. It's a collections or a loan object that is separated from its identification information. Frequently, it's a study object that mistakenly got housed with the collections objects. Or maybe it's a prop that got brought into the collections area and wasn't labeled. Sometimes it's a little bit more complex. Sometimes there are potential donations that are brought in for consideration and the person at the front desk failed to make the donor fill out the paperwork. Sometimes people leave items at the museum for identification or appraisal or authentication. I've discovered frequently that personal items belonging to staff, board members, and volunteers often get put on a table and they get whisked away and cleaned up and then you find them inside collections and you have no idea what they're doing there. And then sometimes found in collections items might be a lot more complex. It could be something that you've acquired but not accessioned because it either doesn't fit the mission or you are intending to sell it. Sometimes the object itself is problematic either because of its provenance and its materials and therefore you intentionally didn't number it. Sometimes it's a deaccession that didn't actually make it out of your museum. And then occasionally it's something that is stolen and hidden in plain sight and that is a problem. Now I should say that this is an object that is hidden in plain sight. It was not stolen but this is what I mean by hidden in plain sight. I'm in the curator's office and there is this large table that is under the red velvet. And we lifted it up to find out what it is and it's this gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous dresser. And we'll be talking about this piece in just a little while. There are also things that you're going to find in your collections that are probably not thick. Gloves, whether they're white cotton gloves, nitrile gloves, fingerless gloves like I'm wearing right now because my hands are freezing, winter wear, to-do lists, post-it notes, notes scrawled on the back of envelopes and newsletters, keys, ID badges. Hopefully you really don't discover leftover lunches and bags or plastic wear because that's disgusting and you should not be eating in your collection storage areas. So there's a lot of things that you're going to find in your collections that are not collections objects. And I want you to keep these beautiful keys in mind because we'll be talking about keys at the end. But before you can identify anything that is before you can identify the unidentified found in collections, you need to know what is accessioned in your collection. But first, we're going to take another poll. So if I can have poll number two, please, yes. Do you have a catalog of your collections? I probably should have had a few other answers here because I suspect that many of you who say, yes, I do have catalog. Might not actually have a complete catalog because there's almost always a backlog, especially if you're a collecting institution, but that's fine. All right, so it looks like the overwhelming majority of attendees have a database and hard copy files. I'm going to give you a high five and a gold star. And for those of you who have a database only, that's great. And if you have nothing, I want you to seriously consider cataloging your collections because that is the best way to know what it is that is in your collections and what you're supposed to have. OK, so we're going to talk a little bit about accession numbers. An accession is an object acquired by a museum as part of its permanent collection. And for this webinar, I'm using the word object to mean three-dimensional objects and artifacts. But it can also mean photographs, books, and archival documents. And for those of you who'd like to know all about your words, accession can also be a verb, meaning the act of recording and processing in addition to the permanent collection. Each accessioned object should have an accession number. The accession number is a control number which is unique to the individual object whose purpose is identification rather than description. Sometimes this is called the object ID or the object ID number. It is essentially the social security number of the object. It is unique to that one item, and it is assigned at its beginning of its life in your museum, and it never gets removed. There are a number of numbering conventions. Many of them begin with the year that the object was brought into the collection, followed by a batch number, followed by an end number. Sometimes there are lead zeros. Sometimes there are initials of the museum at the beginning of the accession number. Other numbering systems group all of their objects by type so that all of the paintings are in the 100 series, all of the drawings are in the 200 series, and all of the prints are in the 300 series. As long as you, and that's you the institution, have documented how numbers are assigned and are consistent with the numbering convention. It doesn't matter which numbering convention you use. Each accession object and its component pieces should have its accession number physically adhered to it. This can be done in the form of an acid-free paper tag, tied loosely to a portion of the object that can withhold the tying of the tag. It can be written in ink on a protective barrier coat, such as Acryloid B72, or printed on acid-free paper sandwiched between two layers of a protective Acryloid barrier. Objects stored in boxes should have the accession number written on the exterior of the box, as well as physically adhered to the object. You will also want to have a corresponding paper file with the matching accession number to hold all of the related paperwork. So paperwork includes correspondence, such as written emails. You're going to print those out and put them into that file. So emails with your director and the donor, information from the appraiser, deeds of gift, photographs of the object, insurance values, condition reports, conservation reports, copies of loan agreements of that object going in or out of your museum, scholarly publications and articles related to that object or, in some instances, the donor or the maker of that object should all live in the accession file. And in an ideal world, all of that information is also in your electronic database. If that information lives in one place and not the other, I like to put a nice little cross-reference sheet or note that says, please see the hard copy accession files for more information about the donor or the like. That way, you always know where to find it regardless of which direction you look in. The accession files and the database are going to be your best resources for researching and reconciling found in collections objects. The more complete your records are, the easier you are going to have it when trying to reconcile objects. So where do you go to find found in collections objects? The answer is they can be anywhere in your museum. If you just keep your eyes out, you may find that collections objects and found in collections items are located in places where you do and do not expect them. Sometimes they are hidden behind large objects on shelves and because you don't want to move that very large, heavy sculpture, you don't see that tiny, tiny thing that's hiding behind it. Exhibition prep spaces are notorious grounds for collecting found in collections objects because curators make a last-minute switch and you rush to bring in the new object and you don't put the old tag back on before you rehouse it and then suddenly you're stuck with an object whose number you don't know. Here we have one of my favorite found in collections objects. This is a real-life example of an object that was found inside another object. On the left we have Herman Melville's bookcase from his home in Massachusetts. My museum acquired it in 1971 and we actually have all first edition Herman Melville books here. It's really cool. I opened the cabinet one day to put away a book that some researcher was using and I peeked inside the drawer and lo and behold I found this shiny brass ashtray in a box inside the drawer. So I pulled it out and had my gloves and flipped it over carefully, two hands, and discovered that there was no accession number on it. It's pretty obvious that this ashtray belongs in my collection and I say that because it is in an acid-freeed box with some tissue. This was not an accident. It wasn't placed there by Melville before it was donated to the museum long, long ago. But it didn't have an accession number and I will tell you that I went through all the steps of locating everything and couldn't find brass, ashtray, skeleton edge, and Herman Melville in the database. Fortunately we ended up discovering the answer to this and that's how it came in because the assistant curator or associate curator was doing research on another author and was in those files and came across a list of a loan list for an outgoing loan from treasures from our museum and in addition to the book that she was looking for it listed a brass ashtray that Herman Melville acquired during a South Seas voyage. So I found that but didn't find any deed of gift or any correspondence about donating this object. So I know that it was in my museum since 1969 but I don't have the paperwork that indicates who it's from although the loan paperwork indicated who the donor was and we don't have the donor file. So this became Object 2016.0024. Okay. So when you're in your storage space it's great to have your collections organized. This organization is just great in general. If you can organize your collections in a logical manner that's great by size, by type, by use is probably more helpful than having it arranged on the shelf by the donor because someone could donate a bookshelf and an ashtray and it won't make sense to have them right next to each other. When you have your objects stored again I'm going to label the exterior of your box so that you know what is inside of it and you have to open the box every time. Whenever possible I like to keep my loans separate from my accession collections because loans frequently look like objects for your own collection. They're brought in contractually from another institution for a specific purpose such as an exhibition for a set period of time and that loan object probably has an accession number written on it and that accession number even though it was assigned by the lending institution might resemble yours and it could easily get confused with your own materials. I like to label with a paper tag any incoming loan. I will say it is important not to permanently mark a loan object that does not belong to you. That would be bad. You're also going to want to keep your loan records in a specific folder so that you can go back to them just as we did with the Robert Louis Stevenson loan that actually included the Melville that I talked about before. You probably also have some non-accessioned objects in your collection and it is important to number them and label them. This is important for the health of your collection and for your own personal sanity. Consult your collections management policy to see what kind of numbering convention you have and if you do not have a specified numbering system please designate one. I meant how you have determined this designation when you started using it and whether or not you've assigned props and educational items retroactively. Precursor letters such as prop, na and non-ac or ed can help distinguish props, non-accessioned objects and education collections. I personally like the serial number for props because you can use them over and over again. You can use the props over and over again. You don't want to use the number over and over again. But that way they're not tied to any specific year and you can just add to it. If it's helpful, if you get a lot of objects in for each year you can assign it a year. Regardless of what numbering system you use be consistent and document how you've done it and then establish a paper folder for these types of collections. Depending upon your museum and how often it purchases props or education objects or has non-accessioned items you might be able to have one folder for each of those categories or you might end up with an individual file on each. Okay. Whether you are new to your museum or have been there for decades it is important to look at and examine and explore your collections regularly. Walk through your historic house to make sure that all the silver settings are in place. Do a spot check inventory. Randomly search your collections for inspiration for blog posts and newsletter articles. By actively engaging in your collections you are better prepared to assess and determine the status of an object if it suddenly appears in your collections. And also remember that sometimes your collections are stored and housed in non-collection spaces. So armed with this information we're going to consider a few found in collection scenarios and what you can do. So if you find an object in the collections area and it has an accession number but you can't find a deed of gift but there is evidence of a donor I would say you're in pretty good level area. You don't need to panic. You can probably search your desk drawers and other files for your deeds of gift. You can check your committee meeting minutes for information. And in such situations where you think you know who the donor is you can also go back to the donor and ask them for their copy of the paperwork. Similar things can be done for objects that appear to be loans. If you've discovered an object and it has an accession number but it doesn't align with your numbering convention it is possibly a loan. You can go through your loan files and exhibition checklists and see if there is something that matches that object that way. If an object is found and has an accession number but has nothing else I strongly recommend going back to your collections committee meeting minutes from the year and try to reconstruct the donation and the decision about how it came to be. It is possible that maybe it was put on hold for a little while and that's why you're doing further research before making a decision. Something to also think about is did you invert numbers? 1987 could possibly be 1978. I frequently like to add extra zeros to the year 2017 so that I have 20,000 in 2017 instead of 2017. So check your numbering to make sure that's not where your error came in. If you find an object in the collections area and it does not have an accession number and it doesn't have any information about the donor or the lender you could still think that it's part of your collection because it's grouped with other objects that are like it. It is similar in user history to other objects in your collection and sometimes you're lucky and you discover a note attached to your object and these notes can be really, really, really helpful. So knowing who wrote the note and whether or not it's dated is a great step in determining whether or not it's a reliable source. In this one, I don't know if you can actually read what it says, but it says Rubin Kramer, sculpture pedestal, question mark? Probably not an accession. On loan, question mark? And so this was written by a curator at my former institution and we found it, the object was in a closet with that note on it and it was actually a very complex story in that Rubin Kramer, who was an artist said at the time he was a living artist and had a show of his works at the museum and then after that exhibition he took half of the stuff back and then donated the other half to the museum and apparently this stand got placed in a closet with this note on it. I don't know why it wasn't returned but then years later we finally determined that it might actually be an accessioned object that was listed as a gondola stand. I have no idea what a gondola stand is but I did a number of inventories and never came across a gondola stand and then we were cleaning out the closet and we came across this stand and the top surface actually rotates which led me to believe that maybe that's what it is. And going through past loan records indicate that the stand was never returned to him so we now have a good sense of what the object is and who the donor was. When you have an object and there's absolutely no documentation this is a perfect time to grumble out loud and swear and shake your fists and curse your predecessor and then go through all the files and look for that information. I frequently feel better after shaking my fist and then I go back and go through all the papers and look loan agreements, catalogs, checklists. In the scenario of six where an object is found in a non-collection area and is unlike anything else in the collection you may be really really tempted to just throw the object out because it couldn't possibly be an accessioned object. And I would like to say that please don't do that. I once did that. I found a yard long piece of like tow board trim underneath a collection shelf and I assumed that the previous archivist had used it to pull out something that had fallen behind the shelf because she was known for getting it down on all hands and knees and using all sorts of like rulers and yard sticks to pull things that had fallen off the shelves. So I assumed that's what it was. But it turns out it was an accessioned object and we didn't discover that it was an accessioned object until we did an inventory. We actually did our second or third inventory and that object still wasn't found and then I read the complete description and realized that I had thrown it out years earlier. Yay! That was a bad, bad day. Okay, so we're going to research our found in collections objects. Before you can declare that any object is a legitimate found in collection you need to try to solve the problem. And sometimes it's easier to solve the problem than other times. My best advice is to work logically and methodically and if you don't solve or resolve the issue after the first or second step start documenting where and how you looked and researched. And if you go to the handout later you will find a nice little found in collection documentation sheet that you can amend to your purposes and just follow along and make notes in that. So, you're going to examine the object closely. Pull out that flashlight or your cell phone app with the flashlights my most frequently used app or pull out a magnifying glass if you need to because objects are frequently numbered in unobtrusive places like the base, bottom, or back of heavy furniture. So here I am on the ground in the curator's office looking for the number of that dresser. Also when you're looking for an erased or obliterated numbers numbers that are scratched or etched in or scratched or etched out look for a small shiny rectangle because frequently when a registrar puts on the accession number you use the acryloid seal base and frequently it's easier to see that like shine than it is to see the number frequently written in black or white or red and sometimes the person who wrote those numbers didn't do a great job and the numbers blurred or there's bubbles and you can't actually read the number check inside the body of a bowl, vase, or cup or between two component pieces look in the seams and pockets of clothing as well as the neck of the garment check inside the front cover or fly leaf of a book and also see if there are any notes written on a top of a folder look around the object including lower shelves and the floor for loose object tags if you don't find the accession number on the object the next step would be to go to that database catalog you should be able to find the object that you have without using the accession number starting with the object name or location is probably your best bet although descriptive elements and keywords are also very helpful and think like your curator or the person who did your database cataloging because sometimes you use fine decorative arts terminology to describe your collection so the dresser that was under the red cloth in the earlier picture it didn't have the number on it couldn't find it and so we went to the database and my work site student typed in dresser and came up with nothing and we typed in the room number came up with nothing and that is because we use the decorative art term commode to describe this object rather than dresser or anything else so when you do find out what the object number is label it front and center excuse me so if you're using your database another way to find an object that you can't locate is to run a query with status being missing so that you can find out if it's already a documented missing object that you've now found the actual object I also like to run queries with statuses being on loan or on exhibition or deaccessioned and if you use if you conduct inventory on a regular basis you can run a report for anything that has an outdated inventory date my only word of caution here is that you might start finding out that you have a lot of other missing objects so now in addition to finding something in your collection you might have some missing objects that you want to try to locate and I encourage you to try to locate it just know that you might open up a big can of worms so you can also snap some pictures of the object and ask your colleagues about it when you're talking to your colleagues you might also want to start talking to colleagues who are not actually in the collections department your program and education staff and even your director and when you're talking with your program and education staff you might want to remind them that they are not the only ones who bring objects into the museum sometimes they have presenters and artists who bring something in for an audience and possibly they've lost or left something behind and in this example my friend has this is clearly a student work of art and it is hanging in her museum as it's been hanging for many many many years but what she was trying to find out is whether or not the student actually gave the piece to the museum or if the student simply never collected their piece after the initial display and the object remained on the wall so that's something that we're going to work on and a word of caution is that you want the you want to establish proof of ownership before you turn something over to either a presenter or an artist you want to make sure that you're actually giving back something that does indeed belong to them also depending upon your institution your volunteers and board members source or resource about asking about found and collections objects I'm constantly amazed at what the volunteers knew at my former institution that I couldn't possibly know if you think that your found and collections object is an unreturned loan even a really really really old unreturned loan like 30 years old you need to do some research you should not worry about ruining your professional or personal reputation of yourself or your institution and you should not assume that there's a statute of limitations that specifies that unclaimed objects become the property of your museum after so many years because it is really really really awful when the curator of a very important and prestigious museum comes into your museum and tells you that the most glamorous object on display is actually a loan from their institution from 30 years ago that is exactly what happened to me in my first or second month of my first museum job and I had to say great, prove it I'm not giving this back to you today on the spot I need to see your paperwork it was perhaps one of the most intimidating moments of my museum career I still remember that and I still can't look at that curator in the face but she was correct it was an outdated loan and she had paperwork and proved it and I will say that the institution where I was was just beginning as a museum and didn't quite know all the rules and well that's a sidebar for another day but it is best to come forward and come clean and contact the museum that you think it belongs to and say we did this exhibition where we borrowed objects and I think this might be long to you do you have everything that was supposed to be returned because sometimes you're in a hurry and you don't count how many spoons you borrowed and you could just accidentally return 15 instead of 16 teaspoons they all look the same so make sure you count and ask them to prove that they don't have it or if you have a checklist where something clearly isn't checked off and your object matches it, it could very well be could very well be there's so that's kind of fun you can also think about I'm going to put this in quotes that you can't see me doing because I'm not I'm just a voice coming over the air you're not watching me but there's air quotes going public with your founded collections objects you certainly can but you should think about what kind of PR ramifications you might have and PR I don't think that necessarily anyone's going to come like news crews going to come and say oh my god this museum has founded collections objects they don't know what they're doing unless it's a really really snow flow news day but you do want to control how you spin your story if there's anything as museum professionals know is that the public has no understanding of what we actually do they hear words like deaccession and they assume that we're all selling off our best artwork and you know buying ourselves cars with that money when we all know that that's not the case so by incorporating your founding collection into a regularly occurring newsletter article or facebook post you can introduce understanding our collections and explain what you collect and how you collect and we have this item that we don't actually know what we have does anyone know what it is like what is it Wednesday where people identify bizarre objects is also like a fun way to do it and if you go to your handout there is a great link to the Tampa Bay History Museum they did this amazing little PSA video about founding collections and I really like it I think it's a great model so check them out and control how you spin your story but be honest because sometimes you do find things and it's not always bad oops alright so now we're going to do our founding collections objects researching can be time consuming as we all know especially since who actually has time to just sit down and do the research so if after taking the initial steps you don't find your object go ahead and assign it a temporary founding collections number I say temporary because you might actually solve it so how are you going to number your founding collections many museums designate the first accession number of the year as founding collections and this is great if you work in an institution that's actively collecting and conduct regular inventories and know how many or know that many objects in the collection are not fully documented and you're going to remember to use that numbering convention each and every year and you'll pass that information on to your successor another option is to assign it a lot number that is so high that it's unlikely that you'll ever reach it like 2017.500 you can also assign it an impossible number which in my case my museum started in 1954 so anything that would have a 1950 number would be an impossible number it couldn't possibly be from the museum you can also assign a prefix like thick or temp or inv for inventory or z because it's just the greatest letter in the entire alphabet each number each object should get its own unique number unless of course you find all 16 of those spoons in which case you can assign a batch number for it but regardless of whatever number and convention you choose be consistent you should also physically tag your object at this point with the thick number so that way you don't rediscover it all over again um and if you're making a collections database record for your thick you can flag and tag it in a variety of ways so that you have a visual signifier that there's something special about this object that you want to be aware of um create your paper file for your thick you can possibly create one file for all of your thicks or each thick will have its own file regardless you're going to want to fill out your founded collection documentation form that tells you everything you already know about the object where you found it and when you found it and why you found it also just because you've assigned a temporary number to your founded collection object does not mean that the object is now automatically accessioned you now need to determine what you're going to do with that item so can we have poll number 3 the question is do you have a collections committee I love watching numbers change it's lots of fun okay so it looks like more than half of you responders have a collections committee I'm just shy of half of you do not I would strongly recommend having a collections committee if you are a collecting institution and your collections committee could include board members who are familiar with museum collections as well as museum professionals from other institutions and people who are knowledgeable in the subject matter for your museum and there should definitely be staff from the museum specifically you know either you the registrar or the curator or both of you who are there to present the museum's cases for accession and acquisitions should have also asked you if you have a collections management policy because your collections management policy should specify what it is that you are collecting but anyway I did not so we won't ask questions as you're doing your research you're going to ask lots and lots of questions ask yourself these questions ask your colleagues these questions ask the director these questions your questions should include let's see did I do it this way oh I did yay is the object relevant to your museum's collecting mission all of the same roles apply to founded collections items that apply to new items brought in and offered for accessions thick items need to meet your collecting criteria they should not duplicate your existing collections unless they are superior in quality or provenance good luck with that part and meet your museum's mission the physical condition of the object can play a part of consideration for accession but you should also remember that even broken objects do have value and merit is there scientific scholarly or historic value for this object is there financial value for this object either for you or another institution and let's be clear there are a lot of people who study really bizarre obscure things as well as like material culture from the 21st century so stuff that you might think can just be tossed might actually have value consider whether or not the object has Native American origin or is there a chance that it was looted during a time of war or civil unrest you might need to return that object to its rightful owner regardless of it fitting into your collecting missions and meeting your collections criteria also if the object is derived from threatened or endangered species there may be laws against owning the object and if the object poses a threat to you or the collections you might not want to have it in your collections so again engage your staff and board and collections committee into conversations and this will be broken down into two big two broad categories do you want to keep the object or get rid of the object if you keep it are you going to keep it in your collection or you going to put it into an education or study collection or something like that if you're going to get rid of the object do you want to trade it with another museum give it to another museum sell it to another museum or sell it commercially before making those decisions about disposal you need to consider whether or not your state is in if your state has a museum specific old loan legislation and do you need to seek legal counsel I'm going to go back for a second so the decision to accession found in collections should not be made by one person again you want to bring it to your collections committee and discuss your findings and your rationale for either accepting or rejecting the object by including discussions about accessions and deaccessions and found in collections on your regular collections committee agenda your collections committee will be prepared in the event that you have a found in collection that you wish to discuss and that way your collections committee doesn't suddenly get all in a tizia or an uproar that something is found because they will then be educated that this is a normal occurrence so when do you put your found in collections items into your database this is probably going to differ from each institution but check out what your collections management policy says be sure that you fill out your found in collections documentation form which will tell you when you discover the object whether it was during collections inventory or you were going through the closet looking for an old box of catalogs and you came across an object include the measurements in a photograph of the object a complete description of the media materials any makers marks all that good stuff I like to put my found in collections materials into the database I think that this is the most helpful thing because your database is going to be where you're going to search for an object whether it's whether you know it to be accession or if you just have it around the museum that someone is going to find and ask questions about by having it in the database you can always search it just because an object is in your database doesn't mean that it needs to go live and on the web so you can keep certain objects off so guess what you just discovered after doing another inventory that you really do know the accession number of that found in collections item what do you do besides panic so here we have a painting of Stephen Gerard it was part of our original collection and in 2003 someone was doing an inventory and didn't find the number so they assigned it a 2003 accession number when you reconcile a found in collection you want to make documentation in both of those collections records both the hard copy and the electronic format that says that 1954 1906 equals 2003.53 you will want to include those numbers as old numbers or other numbers to record the reconciliation in the notes field and then even though you're going to be really tempted to hit the delete this record button from your database you're not going to do that you're going to again I put this in quotes deaccession that record you're not actually deaccessioning the object but by deaccessioning the record you will a truncated version of that record available to you for future reference and then in the event that someone doesn't go to the paper file to find the cross-reference sheet that says 2003.53 is really 1954 1906 go to that file you will be able to find it that way and thick number reconciliation is a legitimate answer to why object could be disposed or deaccessioned it's a little bit harder when you don't want to keep the object in your collection because you might not actually have legal ownership of the item so getting rid of something that you don't legally own can be problematic I apologize to my successor Joanna because she inherited a very large box that says something like thick comma not wanted and there's just boxes of things that we didn't want but I haven't disposed of them and they're just sitting on the shelf waiting for some poor other person to discover what they are and come up with another idea about what to do with them but I don't want to get rid of them because that's just sad again go to your abandoned property law legal counsel if necessary okay now really really quickly tips on preventing found in collection hopefully they'll be really helpful I love using separation sheets or paging slips I like to color code them you can put them on a pocket board and slip them in between books or put them on the shelf or on your hanging wire racks they are amazing conduct regular inventory of your collections that way you always know what is supposed to be on your shelves and that way you are aware when something suddenly shows up update your database with every move this is time consuming and annoying but is your best defense against lost and stolen objects after your exhibition is complete do yourself a favor and re-tag the object with their original tags and use the original folders if you had archival materials this will help you keep everything straight and organized I'm also a big advocate for cleaning your object cart after each and every use and definitely after each exhibition installation or de-installation so you're going to make sure that there's no papers inside folders that all the labels and tags are housed properly check between layers of tissue paper and mylar and mat board re-house your tools you'll be able to find them later and clean up your exhibition prep space to you make sure that your deeds of gifts or loan agreements provide enough description to differentiate one object from another the description of silver cup could mean a silver liner for a chocolate cup a drinking cup or even a trophy and you might have more than one silver tanker in your collection so also use an accurate count of objects so that you say something like eight spoons rather than a set of spoons whenever possible I like to restrict access to the collection storage area so that only people with legitimate needs to enter have regular access to the space non-collection staff can be escorted as can interns and volunteers on board members and museum visitors should really never have access to collections storage unless they are escorted on a special tour with specific reason this is another one of my favorites label your envelopes of collections pieces completely with the accession number object name and title and the date inside you should include a description of what happened in both the envelope and the catalog record and consider whether or not these pieces should be stored with the rest of the objects or if maybe your desk drawer is truly the best place if you remember those pictures of the keys consider keeping the keys with the object to which they belong either way tag them with the accession number try to think like your predecessor just because they don't do things exactly the way you do doesn't mean that they were wrong if you can think about how they name files and objects you might discover that this cranberry candelabra on a mirror is actually a it's a cranberry candelabra it's not pink cranberry is the correct term and the mirror is actually a plateau that was my poor little intern was trying to find what those objects were and we had two of them right there that were difficult so use terms that are helpful to researchers as well as to the authorities on the object make sure that your catalog records are logical as well as technically correct document everything that you do it will save the next person a lot of time and they might not agree with your method or approach but they'll be grateful to know what you did and whatever you do don't put it off because it's not going to get better and it's not going to solve the mystery itself and I think that is all that I have to say to you and I wanted to read all those words that I said to you I'm now open for questions okay I'm gonna begin at the beginning here um Dana and Nightzel asked in the beginning she said catalog is a big term to take a poll without defining so would you like to define catalog? you are so correct it is a vague term in this sense I do mean it in its vagus format a catalog is a list with description of every object in your collection it can be electronic okay Deborah asked what do you do when 75% of the collection is as thick and there's no paper trail there was no accession register kept before I came and little to no paperwork done is to donor sounds like a small museum it sounds like a small museum I wonder if it's a historic house museum more okay in a case like that you might assume that majority of the items in the house are there from the beginning what I would do is start well start with this year and assign everything accession number this year and say that it's likely to be from the beginning of time but since you don't know it you don't know you can't go back okay just document say that like starting in you know 2017 I did this inventory of all the objects that didn't have any numbers on them okay um Aaron Kirchner said what objects would not be accessioned other than props um it depends upon what kind of museum you're in a lot of museums have study collections where people use replicas um of like historic objects where replica furniture um so you wouldn't necessarily accession those and you wouldn't necessarily use them as a prop so anything that's leaving the museum on a regular basis for an education program could be non-accessioned okay um did that answer the question that's right and I know some been in museums where people accession the desks that people sat in although they were just random desks yeah yeah I know that I was into a museum that like everything that was in the building got an accession number whether it was brought in as a donation with the intent to be a work surface I think we eventually decided to accession those items that were clearly intended to be a work yeah um do you handle internal loans in the same fashion as you handle external loans in terms of where you keep the objects and paperwork that's from Esther Burns um so yes I do keep my internal and external loans in the same way I assign everything a loan number because I track by loan number and I do try to keep them segregated um outside of the collections area I have a prep space where I try to keep all my loan items whenever possible okay and I do use different um letters like ILL for me you know I can have an incoming loan ILL or an OL outgoing loan and then because I work in a library system where we um I work with like the rare books department I assign that an FLPL number which means it's the free library loan so I have different number lettering but I do track them all so you do assign loan numbers that to track incoming loans which is a question that Joanna McKen had, McMahon and so you've answered that um okay how do you assign accession numbers to a donation of 500 photographs I think this was answered but I'll give you the opportunity to also answer Jeffrey Boyce okay so you got 500 photographs before you assign any numbers to any of the photographs go through them and see if there are any absolute duplicates um because it's really annoying when you have you discover when you're going through photos that photo 133 and 294 and 316 are all copies of the same image I like to make those A, B, and C of that um object number but yep you get to have close to 500 individual records and it's awesome because photos are the most amazing um most telling objects in the collections okay so um there's a question about does anyone still have a paper trail or do most you see some sort of computer database and then there's a question that's related to that which is what database program do you recommend okay so I am a belt and suspender type of girl I have paper records and I have electronic files because I'm a belt and suspenders kind of girl and depending upon who's in your institution and I'm going to say how old they are and when they came through um museum studies and library school they have different methods of researching um so I have both I use both I like to make cross references um so that I don't necessarily copy all articles um into a notes field I'll say go see the hard copy files for this information um and I think that whatever database you use there's probably a version that's available for you and your type of museum um I frequently have used past perfect I find that it works for a small to mid size museum that has a lot of different types of materials in their collection because it is broken down for objects photos archives and library I do know that um library and archival collections find past perfect to be a little bit clunky and doesn't do all of what they wanted to do because it doesn't page for them um and allow you to check out research materials but I like it but I'm sure that there are any number of systems that are good and even an Excel spreadsheet is better than nothing yes um okay um is there Michael Nagy asked is there an official term between stolen to strong and borrowed not strong enough I suspect that their answer the question is yes but I don't know what it is yet yeah okay um sorry I'll come back to that um can systems ask what about private loans sometimes the donors can be very difficult uh to find over a long period of time and I'm going to add if they're dead their theirs might be very difficult to deal with yes this is true lenders private lenders are frequently um difficult which is why you want to have a loan agreement that specifies and I realize this is probably too late for you in this case um that specifies the duration of the loan um and what will happen to the loan if um it's not claimed asterisk please consult your legal counsel to confirm that your state doesn't have abandoned property laws that would supersede what I just said um I used to have um because I used to work in a history museum and a lot of my lenders were really old um I would make sure that in my loan agreement with them I had them put down um in a state representative so in the event that they were to pass away I would know who to contact well that's a good idea um Norman Carlson said between stolen and borrowed is appropriated yes that's the word appropriated um okay Kate Gallagher says would you treat unsolicited abandoned um mailed with no return address as a forever uh thick or my museum does not my state doesn't have an abandoned property law Kate Gallagher you're in Maryland aren't you um um I hate when people mail stuff with the intent of donating it um but if they provide absolutely no information whatsoever and the material is completely entirely inappropriate for your museum and there is no abandoned property law what I would do is pull out my witness of disposal form which I did not include on the handout but it's a nice little form that says I'm the registrar and I'm disposing of this object and it has a complete description of the object and all of the reasons um it was discussed at the collections committee it wasn't appropriate it is hazardous to the museum whatever whatever and I make sure that I have a witness and we watch it go away in an appropriate manner and then that piece of paper is filed that says yes we had it and this is what we did with it so if you want to send me a copy of that form or such a sure I will add it to when I post the recording um okay um so the next question is does the collections committee actually oh function is originally intended that's just a comment on what you were saying about collections committees um and there's also there were some comments about collections plan Lacey in South Carolina said my collections plan is so vague as to be useless and John Kerbow said that's interesting Lacey mine so specific it sometimes feels a little too restrictive so ideas about collections plans yes I have lots of ideas about collections they should be a working document that is you're going to have to if it's so vague or so specific that they're not helpful you need to address that with your collections committee and say I understand that we want to discuss things on a case by case basis but we need some parameters and um okay um I didn't say I have some old language from my former institution that might be helpful but well send it and I'll add it to an additional sheet if you want sure okay um my my institution has collected objects with for documentation for many years and only started cataloging in the last five years I inherited the system where all objects are documented as FIC after cataloging objects we plan to go through the donation forms we do have and to reconcile some of the objects when this happens would be better to assign objects and accession number with the year that the object was donated or a number from the current year or is this simply a preference um I would say if you actually have documentation for the year in which the object is donated well interesting because I want to say you should give it that year that it was donated but if you didn't get around to cataloging until 2017 you could put in your provenance notes and your link it to your donor that way but I would probably go back and put it in the year that it came in with full explanation in all the files about how it had how it came in and why you assigned it a 1980 number yeah um and so there were some questions about um about the separation sheets and how they're used yes I love separation sheets um so they are either white sheets of paper or depending upon your institution I used to like to use color coded um sheets that were coded for each exhibition and there are samples of them in the handouts but it has the accession number and object name a super brief description its home location temporary location who moved it and when and when you take an object off the shelf you fill one of those out and you put it in that space and then you make a duplicate of it um and keep that with the object so you know where its home location is um and then when you're doing inventory later if you come across a mint green slip or a lavender slip or a yellow slip you should in the back of your head know which exhibitions those are related to and if it's like a yellow slip and you're like ooh that yellow exhibition that closed four years ago this could be a problem um that's how I use them but we also use them every time we pull a book off the shelf um I put like and because they're books I'm not using acid free paper I put it in a little pocket board and there are links to pockets on the handout um and I put that little mat board in the bookshelf where I pulled that book out and so when I'm reshelving we have that little visual cue of oh that's probably where it goes and then you take away this separation sheet when you've rehoused it and um you update the database it says that you've rehoused it and you throw it away and you save one copy in the files if you save all of your movement forms okay um Brett Russell says please go through the steps to follow if someone does not want to dispose of an uh thick objects and I will add that we did a webinar in the spring called why do we need this and that was one of the topics of that webinar which was also very good so you might want to check that Grotto but Jodi you can answer it too please um so could you repeat that entirely please go through steps to follow if someone does not want to dispose of thick objects they don't want to or they do that's the question don't so if you don't want to dispose of it um and so if you're going to keep it and you're going to accession it or put it in a um study or non-accession collection you are going to assign it um either the accession number or the non-accession collections number I like to make catalog records for all of those items as well um and then you're going to house it in a space that's hopefully or ideally designated for those that type of collections object so whether it's accession or um education collection I we keep the education collections items in the separate um shelving area so that those people don't accidentally steal and by steal I mean accidentally take off the shelves so basically you're recommending that if they're uh uh thick objects that people don't want to dispose of that you keep them in a separate section yeah I mean if you're not going to if you're going to if it's a thick object and you don't want to dispose of it but you're not going to accession it um yeah I would I would label it as such and make sure that there's really clear um documentation about how you came to that decision so that you don't end up with that problem again okay what what is it and why do we have it we have a few more minutes so I'm going to move on um Jill McCleary in Tucson says I'm sorry I had to walk away so this may have been answered we have a painting that was thick in 1979 we now have a loan request for the painting we never pursued abandoned property um is it okay to loan without clear ownership paperwork that's an interesting question and you might wish to seek legal counsel but in my opinion and I am not a legal professional I would say that as long as you indicate on your loan agreement or in conversation with the borrowing institution that you know that you don't have legal ownership to it but you have had possession of it for nearly 40 years um then you can go through the loan like just be upfront mm-hmm and then if someone comes forward you can be like great prove it so um you're going to give me a witness disposal form but there was a question from Lacey and from a few other people about where do you file these forms and for things that we never accessioned or were sicked so um my witness of disposal form um is filed in the the temporary file that I made for that thick object um whether it's one big file or an individual file is where I save that and then there was a second part of the question that I don't remember I know that was basically a case that appears asked um what happens if the accession numbers fell off and you gave something a fake number do you deaccession the thick and put it into the catalog as its original number right so yay you've found out what that real object is um I would in that um reconciled record let's just call it 1983 for fun in that 1983 .1 um accession record I would put in old number or other number I would put in the thick number and then in the notes field um I would say that the object had lost its number and was assigned a thick number and that it was reconciled on this date okay and I would say to people that oh the evaluation thank you for reminding me here it is they're very important um and please fill it out also um I would like to encourage people that in states without abandoned property laws from museums to talk to your state representatives about getting one it's very efficient to lobby them and you have to explain to them why they're important but um it's probably one of the only ways we're going to get such a loss so um I think we're done for the day thank you all please remember to fill out the evaluation form thank you Joby thank you Mike you're welcome and I will say please email me if you do have other questions I'm happy to answer them um I don't want to say our operators are standing by but I am right at my computer so I can answer them and we'll see you in um in November for two good webinars so thank you very much thank you Susan and thanks for everyone for coming okay bye bye