 on behalf of the FAIC. Go ahead Susan. Hi everyone. I want to welcome you to this second part of our series and I'll run through these slides fairly quickly and we'll get going with Sally Yergovich. I just wanted to remind you that if you have questions you can post them on the online community discussion form. You need to register to do that but there are conservators who will answer questions so let's get them busy and you can keep up with our community on Facebook or Twitter and if you're not part of the list serve, the announcement list serve, you can join with this address here or send me email. This is my email address and then coming up. The last of this series, why do we need this insights and hindsight-streamed deaccessioning will come up on May 17th and then we're going to have a webinar on caring for outdoor sculpture and that'll be posted in the next few days and on May day we're doing something entirely different. We're going to do a Facebook Live event and so if you go to the website you can click on this slide and it will tell you how to get there and from two to three on May day and I want to remind you that when your legislators are home talk to them about how you benefit from federal funding from NEH, NEA and I am a less and for those of you who qualify remember the preservation assistant grants their deadline is coming up the beginning of May. Okay so I'm going to turn this over to Sally Yurkovich and take it away. Thank you Susan. I'm looking for my slide. There we go. Hi I'm Sally Yurkovich. I'm currently director of special projects at the American Scandinavian Foundation in New York but I'm also director of the Institute of Museum Ethics at Seton Hall University where I teach. I teach courses on ethical issues related to museums at both Seton Hall and at Columbia University in Columbia's Museum anthropology program. So I think a lot about ethics and today I'm going to talk in generally about some ethical issues in collections management as well as ethical issues related to just museums in general. Before we get started though I'd like to get some sense of who's here. So if you could tell me what kind of museum you work in please answer the poll question on the screen that will help give us some idea of who's in our audience. I see we have people from all over the world so welcome and I hope we can keep you entertained for a while. So moving on then while we're still getting some of the answers to the polls. I know that last week you talked on those of you who participated in the webinar had an overview of some of the most important laws that affect museum collections and John Simmons then said that the law is very complex and that he could only provide a broad overview of the legal issues related to collections management. Well ethics is also complex but in a different way from the law and ethics and legal issues are closely tied. So today we're going to explore some of the legal some of the ethical issues that arise in collections management. First I thought we I'd start with a few quotes from some fairly well-known people things that they've said about law and ethics. I particularly like the fact that Wynton Marsalis that ethics are more important than laws and also that Marie Malaro's quote that law is not designated to make us honorable only bearable because I would continue from that and say that ethics are designed to make us bearable. The law provides a baseline for our behavior so that we can live together in society and bear one another I guess in Marie's words. But as museum professionals we're held to an ethical standard of conduct that is higher than than merely being legal. We aspire to being honorable not just bearable and we have a code of ethics that guides our conduct. Let's take one example of a situation that has both legal and ethical elements to it and think about what we might do if we were confronted with this dilemma. In the 1980s a private collector purchased some small carved sculpture locally referred to as totems from a tribe in East Africa. The totems were legally purchased under the local law and legally imported into the United States. 20 years later the collector donated them to a natural history museum which has held them in their collection ever since. The museum has full legal title to the totems and regularly displays the totems in their galleries where they become very popular with local audiences. But recently members of the tribe contacted the museum stating that the totems should have never left their ancestral land. The tribe believes that they have suffered crop failures and ailing livestock as a result of the removal of the totems and has requested that the totems be removed from exhibition and returned. So my question for you and this is not a poll. The questions that I'm going to be asking are just questions for you to think about because in most of the circumstances that we're going to be talking about today there really isn't a yes or no answer. The answers depend sometimes on additional facts that aren't included in the hypothetical and sometimes just on the circumstances and the stakeholders. So first we say is does this hypothetical present a legal issue? Yes or no? What do you think? And then does it present an ethical issue? All the transactions in the hypothetical were and are legal. The museum legally owns the totems. They were legally purchased in their country of origin and legally donated to the museum. But the tribe has made a demand on the museum that tests the museum's values. Because the request comes from Africa, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA doesn't apply. So we then have to turn to the ethical responsibilities of the museum. On the one hand, the museum has a duty to care for and maintain its collections in perpetuity. But on the other, professional codes of ethics dictate that the museum take the request for the return of the artifact seriously. Here are parts of the AAM and the American Alliance of Museums and the International Council of Museums codes of ethics that pertain to the situation. Both stress that the requests should be handled openly, seriously, responsibly and with respect for the dignity of all parties involved. So when we talk about ethics in relationship to museums, we're talking about professional ethics. Professional ethics define the standards of behavior that relate to the profession. Doctors have them, lawyers have them, journalists have them, and museum professionals have them. In fact, the work of museum professionals has been guided by a code of ethics since 1925, when the American Association of Museums published a code of ethics for museum workers. This is an image of the little booklet that they published in 1925. And it's a really interesting document. It reads almost more like an etiquette book today than like a code of ethics. Today, though, ethics continue to be important to museums, and the code of ethics is considered by the American Alliance of Museums to be one of a museum's five core documents. According to AAM, core documents are fundamental for basic professional museum operations, and they embody museum core values and practices. The documents are mission statement, institutional code of ethics, strategic institutional plan, a disaster preparedness or emergency response plan, and collections management plan. Because AAM wants every museum to think seriously about ethics in regards to its own mission and discipline, it has not published a comprehensive code of ethics, but has instead created a code that enumerates the primary ethical principles that should govern a museum and everyone who works in and with it. AAM goes further and says that each museum should use the principles that AAM articulates in its code, along with other codes of ethics, to create its own standards. So AAM is asking each museum to have its own code of ethics. Other examples of other professional codes of ethics that a museum might consult to create its own include things like the American Association of State and Local History Statement of Professional Standards and Ethics, the Codes of Ethics for Registrars, the Association of Art Museum Directors, professional practices and ethics, the AIC Code of Ethics, and the International Council of Museums Code of Ethics for Museums. The last code of ethics that I mentioned, ICOMS Code of Ethics for Museum is, well, the probably the most well-known code internationally. ICOMS code is much more detailed than that of AAM. When you become a member of ICOM, you must agree to abide by it. It's used throughout the world to guide museum professionals and in fact its definition of museums and other elements of the code have been adopted into law in some countries. It's an important code and one worth familiarizing yourself with because it elaborates upon some of the things that are briefly mentioned in the AAM codes. The ICOM code and others listed in your resource list and I provided you with a list of many more codes than just the ones that were listed on the screen. Those are all some of the examples of the many codes of ethics that one might use as resources to create your own museum's code of ethics if you don't have one. The Institute of Museum Ethics website which is museumethics.org provides a more comprehensive list of relevant professional codes. You might wonder why there are so many codes, different codes of ethics and in part it's because having a code of ethics is a sign of professionalism. It's a sign that a particular field or discipline has an understanding of the values that it deems important and that it regulates itself by issuing standards of professional practice and promoting them among its members. It's a sign of professionalism and it's a sign of professionalism that people outside of the professions respect so that for example when you become involved sometime in a legal matter, in a court case, you'll find that judges often consult professional codes of ethics to get a sense of the sort of ethical values of a particular field and the kinds of ethical principles that a field uses to or applies to itself and understands as standards for appropriate behavior. But having said that and having talked about all the codes of ethics, in fact ethical decision making is really relative. Each situation that we find ourselves in is different and the facts need to be weighed anew. One of the things that makes ethics difficult is that the decisions that we make must necessarily be tied to the very specific circumstances that we face. So ethics is very relative. One of my favorite quotes is from the philosopher William James who said that there can be no final truth in ethics until the last man has had his experience and said his say. James goes on to add that this doesn't mean that we have to wait to make a decision until the last person has had his say. But it means that each of the decisions that we make and the experiences that we have when we're making them contributes to our understanding about how a particular situation should be resolved. Again, ethics is relative and it's important to practice thinking about it even in the absence of a specific dilemma because ethics are messy. And in fact, they're just as messy as this little boy in a Clorox commercial. When I was talking to a colleague the other day, he said, you know, the problem with ethical decisions is that we always have to make them when we're under pressure and we don't have time to be objective about them and we have financial pressures and we can't really think them through. One of the ways of making ethical dilemmas a little bit less difficult is to think about them at times when we're not under pressure to make a decision and come to an understanding of what some of the options might be. So while we don't have a Clorox for ethical dilemmas in museums, we can practice sorting through the mess. We need to be as objective as possible as we isolate the relevant from irrelevant facts that we're dealing with in the ethical dilemma. We need to determine who the stakeholders are, how they might be affected by the various decisions we might make, and if anyone has a conflict of interest in the situation. Once we gather all of the information, we can formulate the ethical problem that we're dealing with and then consult the relevant codes of ethics to see what they have to say. In many cases, we do these first steps automatically, but it's important to always remember that we need to distance ourselves as much as possible or distance our emotions as much as possible from the decisions that we're making. We develop a series of possible solutions to the dilemma and we work through each solution to think about what might happen if we made that particular decision. And then we can consult with colleagues both at our own museums and at other museums who face the same kinds of situations. And after all of that, settle upon the best solution for everyone involved. This sounds like a long process, but as I said, a lot of it happens pretty automatically. And I think the last step is sometimes the most important step to try to distance yourself a little bit from the situation and see what other people have to say about it. So when you see a newspaper article that talks about a museum's ethical problems or something that a museum's problems that you know have ethical dimensions to them, you might want to look at it closely and sort through the facts that it presents and see how you might resolve the issue. Remember to separate your personal feelings from the situation and be as objective as possible. And remember also that you'll never know all the facts in these cases and that sometimes one fact can change the way that you view the entire situation. Nonetheless, it's a good idea to use these possible dilemmas to practice thinking about what facts are really key to resolving a particular problem. Ethical issues related to collections management are based on a basic understanding that museums are distinctive because they own, care for, and use objects of historical, cultural, or scientific value. They represent our shared cultural heritage and it is our duty to ensure that they remain in good condition for present and future generations. This stewardship of collections entails the highest public trust and carries with it the presumption of rightful ownership, permanence, care, documentation, accessibility, and responsible disposal. For the remainder of the webinar I'm going to focus upon ethical issues related to collections management that are the most common and most often fraught within decision. I'll focus upon some of the issues related to accessioning objects into collections, issues involved in ensuring that a museum has a valid title to objects in the collections, and then deaccessioning. We talk a lot about deaccessioning related to ethics and I'll certainly talk a little bit about that today, but actually deaccessioning issues sometimes begin when a museum accepts an object into its collection. Let's stop for a minute and think about the case of Emily Eger, a longtime dearly beloved volunteer for a 19th century art and history museum. Emily has a small painting that she got from her grandmother when Emily was a child sometime in the late 1930s. Her grandmother told her that it probably dated back to the mid-1880s. Before, and so Emily wants to give this to the 19th century history and art museum, but before sending the deed of gift to Emily the curator of the museum does some research and discovers that the artist who painted the painting really wasn't born in the late 1880s, and in fact that the painting, well she wasn't born until the late 1880s, sorry, and that the painting was most likely done in the 1930s, not in the 19th, not in the 19th century, well after the period covered by the museum. But the museum not wanting to offend Emily and her friends who helped the museum accepts the painting on the basis that it's small and it won't take up much room. We can ask a series of questions about this hypothetical then. Has the museum acted unethically in accepting the painting? Probably, because the painting doesn't fit within its mission. But then would you answer that question differently if you knew that Emily had offered to set up a small fund to help take care of the painting? Would that help you, would that make it easier for you to justify the fact that the museum has taken the painting into their collections? But then think about future staff who might come along not knowing Emily or anything about the painting and they might question whether the museum should keep the painting at that point, because they have to take care of it and put resources into keeping it there. Then consider would your answer be different if you knew that Emily's will includes a major gift to underwrite collections care for the whole museum? And then finally a separate question from these others, but a similarly important one. Does the museum have an ethical duty to tell Emily the truth about the date of her painting? If the museum were to keep the painting, maybe you could say well she doesn't really have to know. But and then if you tell her do you risk damaging your relationship to her? And it's that relation so important to the museum that you're going to be dishonest as a result of it? Interesting question. The AM Code of Ethics says that a museum ensures that the collections in its custody support its mission and public trust responsibilities and that acquisition disposal and loan activities conform to its mission and public trust responsibilities. That means that if a museum accepts an object from a beloved donor of trustee that doesn't quite fit within the museum's mission, that object becomes a target for de-accessioning when the memory of the donor fades and someone does a dispassionate assessment of whether the museum should be retaining objects in its collection that are not mission related. Care should also be taken to ensure that all objects accepted for the collection should are mission related and have the potential to serve the museum's educational purpose well into the future. If a museum accepts a valuable object that will require special care or conservation without the funds or the prospect of raising the funds necessary to care for or conserve it, the museum is acting irresponsibly and again perhaps setting itself up not only for a future de-accessioning but also for losing an object that may be invaluable for its educational purposes if the object is deteriorating. If it's the case that a museum accepts a value of something that is valuable and doesn't have the funds to take care of it but doesn't have the funds to take care of it, sometimes it might be better just to say no than to accept something that promises future problems but it's hard to say no so this is where having a detailed well thought-out collections management policy can help protect you from future ethical dilemmas. The policy should detail not just the necessary steps to acquiring and accessioning objects but it should also discuss the scope of a museum's collection and how that collection scope helps the museum fulfill its mission. The scope of collection statement can also help you help give you the language to talk to people who are offering your collections that really don't fit within your mission so you have a document to fall back on. So these are just a few of the issues that kind of rise over objects when they're acquired and accessioned into museum's collections but another one that's connected is the need for a clear or valid title because a museum is ethically bound to ensure that it's the collections in its custody are lawfully held. When a museum acquires an object in most cases it gains title to the object that is it becomes the legal owner of it. A museum has an ethical obligation to do research about the object before accepting it for a museum for its collections to ensure that the title the museum is acquiring is valid. In the previous example curatorial research discovered that the artist didn't live at the time that the donor thought and that the painting to be donated was a later of a later period than the donor believed. In other situations research can discover whether in fact the donor or owner's title to the object in question is valid. Consider another example a picture was stolen in one country and then illegally exported to another. In the second country a dealer purchased the picture and then lawfully sold it to a collector who immediately legally imported it into the U.S. A few years later the collector sold the picture. The purchaser of the picture eventually donated it to the museum. Does the museum have a clear title for the picture? As the icon code of ethics reminds us evidence of own lawful ownership in a country is not necessarily valid title. One might think that the purchaser of the picture in the U.S. purchased it legally it they did purchase it legally if it were not for the fact that in the U.S. one can never gain access or gain clear title to a stolen object. So if the museum does not do its homework before accepting the picture into its collections it would unwittingly become the possessor of stolen property and no matter how long the museum keeps the picture it will never have clear title to it. And if the original owner or descendant of the original owner discovers that the museum has the picture he or she can legally take it back. So in the case of the picture the museum should have traced the ownership history before accepting the picture into its collections. The step that a curator or collections manager takes to meet a legal obligation especially in relation to the purchase acquisition or sale of property is referred to as due diligence. Sorry, it's back. The process of confirming that the museum can gain clear title to the object. In conducting this research the research is discovering the object's history of ownership or its provenance. Most recently the subject of provenance has arisen when museums are looking at objects in their collections for which they for which ownership might be contested. This has happened notably for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and for the Getty regarding antiquities in their collections or even just yesterday I read that the Cleveland Museum of Art announced that it would be returning an ancient marble Roman portrait head of Drusus Minor to Italy because they discovered that it had was a looted object. This kind of issue and the issue of provenance also arises in the discussion of art confiscated during World War II. And the lessons that all of these examples teach is it is really important to have come as complete as possible understanding of the history of objects in our collections and to have a history of their ownership. And while ownership is a legal issue a museum has an ethical obligation to do its due diligence to ensure that it can gain clear title and accepting an object into their collection. Let's look quickly at another example and I'm just going to go over this very very quickly but a museum has a small oil painting depicting a picture an urban street scene in Paris. It was donated it's been the collection for a while it was donated by a local art collector who bought the painting at auction in the 1960s. But all of a sudden the museum receives a letter from a woman who claims that the painting belonged to her great aunt and was taken from the aunt's Parisian apartment in 1943. The woman claims to be the last relative and requests last living relative of the original owner and requests that the painting be returned. Like in the example of the totems earlier we know that both AAM and ICOM Codes of Ethics say that the museum should respond to this inquiry promptly and respectfully. If the museum did adequate provenance research before it accepted this donation it may have it may have had evidence to counter the woman's claim but if it didn't do this research more work is necessary in order to figure out the next steps. In either case the museum can't just ignore the issue and hope that it will go away. So the next topic that I'm going to focus on is is perhaps one of the more controversial ones that we find in museums primarily because it arouses so many emotions and so much attention from the media and that's deaccessioning. Next week's webinar will go into the practical issues of deaccessioning and disposing of objects from a museum's collection but this week well I'm going to focus on the ethical underpinning of that process. Contrary to popular conception there's really nothing wrong with deaccessioning when it's carried out according to the standards and practices established by the field. There are three main points related to deaccessioning and disposal that need to be stressed and there are three really three ethical principles that we need to consider. The first is that deaccessioning is a responsible collections management process. In this country for private non-profit museums deaccessioning is standard or should be can be considered standard but and while it's important to remember that while we all we refer to the whole process as deaccessioning it's actually two processes. It's deaccessioning or the process of removing an object from the accession records of a museum and then the second part of the process disposition or disposal the process of disposing of the object. To ensure that deaccessioning is carried out in as responsible a manner as possible the two processes should whenever physical be separated so that the potential disposal of an object by sale doesn't influence the decisions made regarding deaccessioning. I'll talk more about that in a little bit but generally we know that most if many if not most of museums have collections and that contain objects that may no longer have relevance to the museum's mission or they might not be usable for research or in exhibitions or programs that help fulfill the mission of the museum and in fact continuing to store and care for these objects could drain resources that might be used elsewhere much more productively. So deaccessioning is considered a legitimate practice that helps museums refine their collections and ensure that they may remain relevant and useful to the museum's audiences. The decision to deaccession of course shouldn't be made lightly and should be spelled out the details of how to do it should be spelled out in each of museum's collections management policies. The policy should have a deliberate and careful decision making process outlined in accord with the standards for the museum's discipline and the process should be approved by the museum's governing authority in general. So if it's carried if the deaccessioning is carried out according to the museum's collections management policy then it's a standard practice and unlikely to pose ethical issues in and of itself. The second point related to deaccessioning and disposal is that responsible governance is key to collection stewardship. A museum's governing body determines the organization's policies and protects and enhances all of its diverse resources whether they're physical resources, human resources or financial resources. In that way the governing board makes it possible for a museum to accomplish its mission. Even more importantly when a museum experiences financial difficulties its governing body must make decisions that do not undermine the institution's commitment to proper collection stewardship. This of course refers to a range of decisions that a board might make. Everything from not making the decision to shut off the climate control and collection storage to save money during the summer months to deciding to sell to not deciding to sell a valuable painting in order to get the money to fix the roof. The decision to sell a painting can be made but the decision to sell that painting should relate to the cultural, historic or scientific value that the painting has in fulfilling the museum's educational mission not to the financial value. When this separation between the value of an object and the means for its eventual disposition is made again it's unlikely that ethical issues will arise. This leads us to the third point and perhaps the most important one how we think about the importance of the significance of objects in our collections. Most museums have a wide range of things that they consider important. Some are large, some are small, some aren't worth very much, some are really valuable. Museums acquire objects through collections in a number of different ways through donation. Sometimes they buy things sometimes as a result of field research we all know this but the bottom line is that the objects that a museum owns have historical cultural or scientific value. They have a value that a museum takes advantage of in its educational programs in its exhibitions and whatever. The objects are acquired because they serve the mission of the museum. Some of the things that we collect also have value in the marketplace but once they become a part of the museum's permanent collection their financial value becomes secondary to their importance as a means to understanding our world and ourselves. And this is the the key thing that we that I know we don't but some people involved in our museums sometimes do look at museum objects solely for their financial value not for their financial value not for their other cultural or educational value. So this is as we can't emphasize this point enough for it goes to the heart of why we exist and in confusing the cultural value of an object in a museum's collections with the object's value on the market is where we get into potential ethical quagmars. So with these points in mind and with that so cautionary note let's go back to the AAM code of ethics for museums and see and see that we'll see that the ethics involved in deaccessioning really focus on the disposal of objects. In 1991 AAM revised its code of ethics and in that 1991 code of ethics it was recommended that funds realized from the sale of deaccessioned objects could be used only for the acquisition of new items for the collections. The practice of selling a painting and then later buying another painting seemed very straightforward and totally above board but museums have more than painting and nearly three quarters of the museums in the U.S. immediately raised objections to this restriction. The objections varied a lot according to the discipline of the museum. History and natural history museums for example argued that a museum's responsibility to care for and preserve its collection is of equal importance to the museum's obligation to build its collections. Historic sites agreed with that calling attention to the need to preserve buildings and landscapes as part of their collection stewardship responsibilities. So AAM had to go back to the drawing board and three years later it issued a revised code of ethics with the language that stands in the current code of ethics which says that the disposal of which added to that first first principle the fact that proceeds from the sale of non-living collections are to be used consistent with the established standards of the museum's discipline but in no event should they be used for anything other than the acquisition or direct care of collections. So in this change they acknowledge the fact that the disciplinary differences make a difference in practice and they added the phrase use of funds for direct care of collections. The addition of that last phrase was intended to address the concerns that were raised by so many individuals and institutions in the field and AAM hoped that the phrase would be defined as people applied it over the years. This provision in the code of ethics also makes it clear that the basic ethical dilemma related to deaccessioning is not located in the process of deaccessioning per se but in the disposal of deaccessioned objects through their sale in the marketplace. And this is the case because the very fact of the sale of an object brings its financial value to the fore and it raises questions about the appropriate ways of using money realized from their sale. So then we can ask did the field define direct care of collections by the way that it use funds from deaccessioning. Well not really and especially after the recession we know just from reading the newspapers that deaccessioning popped up in the headlines a lot and in around 2013 AAM asked the accreditation commission what was the biggest issue that they faced in thinking about accrediting museums and they answered that the lack of a definition for direct care of collections was one of the biggest issues that was that they were seen raised over and over again and they asked AAM to clarify the phrase once and for all. The results of that request was that AAM pulled together a task force to define the phrase direct care of collections and AAM published last year the a white paper that was a result of the work that the task force did. The white paper that where the task force went into a discussion of the ethical principles behind the code of ethics and then made recommendations and gave guidelines for how that code should be how the phrase should be used in in everyday museum life. The white paper defines direct care of collections as an investment that enhances the life usefulness or quality of a museum's collection. This definition may seem somewhat obvious but it also allows for flexibility and interpretation on the part of each museum so that your museums collect definition of direct care can reflect your circumstances and my definition can reflect mine. In addition to the definition of direct care the white paper makes recommendations concerning additions to a museum's collections management policy stating that the collections management policy should state how the funds will be used. First of all it should state whether a museum uses funds from deaccessioning for acquisitions or direct care or for both. If it uses funds for direct care then the scope of the museum's definition for direct care should be stated and the collections management policy should define the process that the museum will go through in deciding how to use funds for direct care of collections and it should outline who's going to be involved so that it's not just the staff who will make the decision it's not just the board that would make the decision but a group of people who represent both the professional staff and the board who will make the decision and how the funding funds should be used. Like thinking about ethical problems when you're not facing one defining direct care of collections and thinking about the ideal use of funds from direct care of collections those sorts of decisions are best made in the abstract not when you're facing a particular issue and so AAM is asking that you in fact make those decisions and make them a part of your collections management policy so that you will have made them in the absence of a particular case that you're trying to decide. The white paper also recommends that the funds that you realize from selling an object be put into a segregated account so that it's kept separately from general operating funds and that the earnings from that account should be used consistently with the collections management policy in other words applied to acquisition or direct care of collections. They also ask that this statement on the use of funds being used in be restated in the ethics code of ethics of the museum just to make sure that everybody has the the same statement. So the white paper also includes three tools that are designed to be to help you make decisions on how on the direct care of collections and those tools are a matrix a list of questions and also sidebars the sidebars represent each of the seven or so disciplines that were involved in the direct in creating the white paper and gives further definition to how those those different disciplines think about use of funds from deaccessioning. The matrix sets out four parameters that reflect the criteria that the task force developed that were that help define whether a use of funds is is direct care or not. As you plot a use of funds on the matrix if you you will see where the use where the the object or the use of funds falls within the four quadrants this is how you plot it if you on the vertical axis you can indicate where the expenditure falls whether it's a strategic investment that's consistent with responsible fiscal planning or whether it's a quick fix or a bandaid. I mean for example a strategic investment like one-time conservation costs or quick fix paying the light bill filling a budgetary gap paying the accountant salaries or putting paper towels fresh paper towels in the restroom all quick fix or bandaid solutions that should really be recovered under the museum's regular operating budget. On the horizontal axis you can indicate where the expenditure falls between making a physical impact upon an object something that increases or restores its cultural or scientific value thus prolonging its life as in conservation treatment or restoration of an object preservation or restoration of an interpreted historic structure that's considered part of a collection or on the other end of the matrix on the other side of the matrix making an institution-wide impact that benefits areas of or operations of the entire museum not just those associated with collections so things on this end of the of the matrix are on its end of access might be things like salaries or the preservation or restoration of historic structures or landscapes that aren't interpreted to the public and aren't treated as parts of the collection. So proposed uses that land in that can be plotted on land in quadrant one are clearly direct care of collections and those that land in quadrant four are clearly not. Quadrants two and three are the gray areas these are the sort of it depends zones that require further discussion on both the staff and the board level. For these you might want to use other the other tools in the white paper and keeping in mind the spirit of the ethical principles and consider the museum's own disciplines practices policies collections and situation to decide what's appropriate for your museum. Two museums with a with a similar situation with objects sort of plotter or uses of funds plotted in the same quadrant could come up with very different decisions depending upon their particular circumstances. Having documenting this whole process is really important so as you go through the questions this making decisions about will an investment enhance the life usefulness or quality of an object and is this a strategic decision? Will the expenditure have a physical impact on an item or items? If you answer yes to any of these questions you can you can be fairly sure that this is a an action that would be sanctioned as a that would be clearly a direct care of collections. Will the investment have improved the physical condition of an item rather than benefit the operation of an entire museum? If it's yes it's direct care. Is the decision being made without financial pressure? Sometimes the key question is the cost not normally considered part of the museum's operating budget? And finally can the decision be clearly explained to the museum's stakeholders and the public? This last question is also a really important one because if you can't explain to people outside the museum why you made the decision and how you made the decision it may not be the right one. As you can see lots of these questions lead you to making decisions to conserve objects. Conservation is although I can't well it's hard to make any absolute declarations but conservation is certainly one of the most important aspects of direct care of collections and that's I think one of the least ambiguous conclusions of the task force. I mentioned earlier that the white paper also includes seven sidebars that specify the practices of different museum disciplines regarding the use of funds from deaccessioning. So if your museum is a history museum or if it's a historic site the ASLH standards for professional practice and ethics would apply. If you are a member if you work with a zoo the AZEA ethics will apply in addition to the AAM ethics. So these these separate practices and the separate disciplines need to be considered along with the along with the answers to the questions and the plotting of the use of funds on the direct care matrix to sort of come to a conclusion. So to test these to test these tools let's look at one final hypothetical example. In the handouts and materials you have the complete hypothetical. This is just sort of an overview of it here but let me let me give you a little bit more information. So this is we're talking about the Anselsea Blodgett house was built in 1878. It became a historic house museum sometime probably 50 years or more later. It has two floors of period rooms that are decorated with the collection of Victorian era furnishings. A few are original to the house others of the period along with Blodgett family artifacts are there maybe and there are also two offices in the building. The attic is used for collection storage. There is a staff of three who everyone wears several hats. The director is also the curator. The public programs manager is educator and the maintenance and grounds keeper is the third person. They also have 20 very loyal volunteers who assist with programs and give tours. So they have on-site collection storage and the attic is crowded and it's not climate control. The roof leaks in many places including over the storage rooms and the period rooms. They sold a painting and three pieces of furniture that were all properly deaccessioned. They netted around $150,000. So the museum's collections policies say that the museum can use the funds for acquisition and direct care and the museum has a list of things that it might want to use the funds for. The first is to install an independent climate control system in the collection storage or attic. The second is to pay the director of salary and the third is to replace the entire roof. So the question for you is which of these qualify as direct care? You can use the matrix and guiding questions on the on your sheets to think about this and think about how you might decide to use $150,000 for the bladget house. So the AAM direct care white paper can be found on AAM's website. This is the URL for it. It gives much more detailed information than I've provided today but I think it provides help with making decisions about the direct care of collections. If you're interested in learning more about these issues, ethical issues related to collections management conservation or legal and legal even legal issues related to collections care, and you're going to AAM, look through the program processions. There are some that are specifically focused on legal issues and where experts will come and answer your any questions that you might have. So in addition you might find the following resources really useful. Marie Malaro and Ildeco de Angelis's legal primer on managing museum collections says that it's all about legal things but in fact I've found that especially regarding collections questions and governance questions, ethical questions as well as legal questions, this is a place to go. It's a fabulous book and a resource that I use more and more every year I think. John Simmons, Things Great and Small, Collections Management Policies, is an important book to have on your bookshelf. If you're interested in getting into more deeply a discussion of ethical issues, not so much practical ethical issues but theoretical ethical issues, Janet Marstein's Rutledge Companion to Museum Ethics has a number of essays that look at ethical issues related to conservation, to collections management, as well as to issues related to governance exhibitions and the like. And then finally a plug for my own book, A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics, which is, as it says, a very practical guide to applying the principles that you find in the AAM and the ICOM codes of ethics in everyday situations. It gives you lots of things to, lots of hypothetical cases to think about and questions to answer. So that's it for today. I'm here to answer questions that you might have. Okay, I'm going to put the evaluation link up here. Please fill out the evaluations. They're really important and I also wanted to say that in July, the end of July, we're going to do a webinar on ivory and issues with ivory and I'm hoping in the fall we'll do a webinar on NAVPRA. I'm trying to arrange that now just so you have those things in mind. Okay, so Sally, Jess Miller count is sad in regard to the Emily situation that it would be more unethical to accept an object not covered by your mission if it came in as a gift than otherwise. Not only are you not telling them the truth, you're getting something out of it through deception. And then, so there was there was a lot of discussion about that. And so Evelyn Fiedler said, does this museum have a collections management policy? If not, then it should as it would guide the decision-making. And finally, Jess Miller count said that they had accepted an object that was supposed to be natural only to find out it was man-made and it still falls within what we covered but I immediately told the donor he was a bit upset but he'd been deceived by the guy who sold it to him and was grateful that I told him the truth. So that's what came up in the Evelyn thing and if you want to discuss any of that you can. Yeah, I think, I mean, that it's you're all being very wise. It's sometimes, I think we sometimes think that donors are going to react more negatively than they do when they're confronted with the truth about something and having a collections management policy gives you the language to use to talk to them about why you're not accepting something and even about the process that you go through in making that decision, you know, doing the appropriate research is important and it shows that the museum is, you know, taking itself and the donations really seriously. So I think sometimes we fear telling people the truth when we think they're not going to like it but in fact in the long run it sort of helps uphold the integrity of the institution. Yeah, okay, so now there were some comments about the picture. How do you handle donations that were taken in 40 years ago without restrictions accepted in the collection in perpetuity that no longer fit within your mission statement? Is it necessary to hunt down the descendants of the donor 40 years later? This is something that you need to probably ask a lawyer. I would say no, it's not. That it's not, even when you, if someone has given you something for your collection, you own it and if you want to dispose of it that's now your decision to make. If the donor is still alive it may be wise to inform them, him or her, that you're going to do that just to be nice but you don't have to. It's your object now. If it's something that's really a fantastic object that for some reason or another is going to, you know, make the newspapers that you're deaccessioning it then, you know, then you really need to think through your PR strategy about it and probably also contact the donor just to let them know that you're going to be deaccessioning it and why. But as far as tracking down errors I don't believe it's really necessary unless you know who they are, unless they're friends of the museum and you want to be sure that they feel comfortable with what they're doing. You should also keep in mind that if you're deaccessioning something that you've had in the collection only for a few years and you're notifying the donor and the donor says that he wants it back, again you're not under any obligation to give it back to him and in fact if it's been only a few years since you've had it in your collection there may be tax consequences. So if the donor's taken a tax deduction for the object, so that's again something where you need to get legal advice. Okay, and then Evelyn Thiedler said, if you suspect that something was stolen how sometimes provenance doesn't go back to the original owner so how do you track that down? There are a number of databases that you can check to see that record stolen objects and I can't think of them all in the top of my head but I can I would be happy to to provide a list of them for you. There are there are several, well the Interpol, if it's an issue of an object that may have been stolen internationally, Interpol has a list. There are several databases in England and I believe there are some in the United States so I will be sure that there is a list put on with the materials so that you can get it when the webinar is online. Yeah, I mean you can't it's not always possible to trace the whole ownership history of an object especially if it's a fairly old one but but you need to do as much as you can especially if you suspect that it's stolen. Right, and Lindsay Hansen had a question, would direct care include hiring more collection staff to maintain the collection? If you're hiring a regular staff person and probably someone who's you know going to be there for forever it probably wouldn't would be less justifiable than if you were hiring for example a conservator to to conserve one object so if you were doing a contract with a conservator or a contract with a collections with a collection staff person to work on a very specific project it would be more allowable than just to put another person on salary. Okay, but it's going to depend on a lot of your specific circumstances. So Jenny Henkinson says, so how do you balance the charge slash need to enhance your museum's collection with the purchase of objects that may not have clear title such as through an antique stealer or on ebay? So it's say that again the balancing between care and... The need to enhance your collections with the purchase of objects which may not have clear title such as if you bought something through an antique stealer or on ebay. On ebay, right. I would stay away from something that doesn't have clear title. I mean unless you're talking about you know a baseball card on ebay or something like that you know if you're talking about something that is has value I would stay away from it. And Sarah Clark says, is it ethical or legal to use proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned objects to care for objects that are treated as collections but not legally owned by the museum? So I would assume that means long-term loans? That's a good question. You know your long-term loans or maybe loans for an exhibition. The principle behind direct care is really focuses on the collections that a museum owns and that it is going to keep and continue to use long-term. So it's really focusing on your own collections rather than on collections that you don't own. So I would say that if I were plotting that on the matrix it would probably I don't know where it would be if I not even be on there if the collections weren't the museums. Well if you had something that was part of an exhibit aren't you obligated to care for it but not to treat it? I'm thinking of an exhibit where there was a loan from one museum to this other museum and the artist said, oh I'll just fix this up. The conservator who was there said, no that's our responsibility. We bought this when you were working 20 years ago and we want a record of what you were doing then not what you're doing now. The artist was pretty unhappy but that stopped the second museum from bringing in the artist to treat something. But was this something that was part of the museum's collection or was it on loan? It was a loan from another museum. And the conservator was from the the owner museum? I don't know. I mean that's an interesting question. I don't know the answer. I think it has to be. I mean if that's a you know I would think that I would say that it's I guess I'm trying to think through circumstances if if in fact you didn't need to take care of and your your collection was perfectly conserved and housed and all of that sort of thing and that the only thing that needed attention was this object that was on loan in an exhibition then maybe then it would be okay. Yeah but wouldn't you have to ask the owner? Yeah oh yeah yeah and I would think I mean it's really the owner's responsibility. Right right so it's the owner who should be thinking about using funds from their direct care part of money not the lending you know the borrowing museum. Yeah um so there was a question before we got into the Blodgett House about would from Abby that said would creating climate controlled storage area when there previously was not one where would that fall and in the Blodgett question I think from watching the the discussion that Roof went over climate control and the tail end was improving the director's salary but what are your thoughts on that? I would I think that but again it depends on the priorities of the institution but I I think that if the institution needs a climate control storage area and there hasn't been one and it's really you know it's a it's a one-time issue that is going to help preserve the co all of the collections I think that that's perfectly legitimate. Could be perfectly legitimate. I shouldn't make any absolute statements about these things but but I think that it would work. I mean I know that if you you know if you're installing a climate control system in a place that has a leaky roof um the leaky roof might win out over the climate control system. I think that's what but the the discussion was about yeah um so there's another question about how do you handle the accessioning found in objects collections or found in collections objects and and I'll just add here we're hoping in in our collaboration with ARCS to do something on found in collections but Sally what's your thought about that? You know I think it would be great if you could because found in collections is a huge topic and it varies a lot state by state. I would handle it very carefully I would be sure that that you did as much publicity about it as you could. I mean publicity in the sense of trying to find more out you know who owned the object and how it got into your collections advertising the fact that you you know you have this thing. I think it you know it's it's a really common problem and one that museums often just choose not to face because it's so complicated but I would just say handle it very carefully and follow the you know follow the guidelines in the literature about how to how to to deal with objects found in collections. Yeah and I think that's part of what Leslie Jones is going to cover that she'll talk something about found in collection stuff but as I said we're hoping to do just a whole webinar on that because it's an important topic. And then Gwen Cernas says ours is similar to the current question which is I think about caring for things that you don't own it says a lot of our items are from a single collector so I'm not I'm not even Gwen are you still here let us know what what you're asking here she's right yeah um let's see oh maybe she's not um but uh no maybe okay um we'll we'll find oh she says yes the question before about what direct care about direct care of items of loaned items so a lot of a lot of your your items are from a single collector but they're on loan and so they're privately owned yeah that and and she says that's correct yeah okay um I think that'd be really touchy yeah it's really touchy I mean I would say you know the responsibility for the condition is I mean the the collector is someone who should really be dealing with that not the museum right that's what I would think yeah so I and let's wait a few more minutes and see if there are any more questions but um this has been really interesting um well how how do on how should a a donor who has a valid date of gift handle the situation where the the institution comes back and says we've changed what we're collecting and do you want this collection back well it would depend on how many years it had been since the oh I think in this case it was 20 yeah I don't know I would um I actually would I and I guess it's it's so hard to imagine a situation like that I mean I guess there could be a case where you really you knew the donor well and you wanted I wouldn't ask them if they wanted it back I would just tell them that the museum couldn't use the collection for whatever reason any longer and wanted to deaccession it and then sell it and just make sure that the donor knew that that was going on um then that sort of opens the door for the donor to say well gee if you don't want it anymore I'll take it back but right you know again I I would tend to make sure that that was okay with an attorney before I did it to just be sure right I think that the donor in this case said we gave those to you and they belong to you and they're your problem that's fine actually that's what the donor should say I think they were quite stunned about it and it was yeah because they are yours I mean we have an attachment to our donors I think that extends to their objects but in fact once a donor gives you something it's yours and you can do whatever you want with it um it just what you do with it may have an impact on your relationship with the donor so that's the touchy part or on future donors yeah yeah okay so I think that oh we have one another big question will there be any other webinars that address issues other than accessioning indeed accessioning yes we if you will send me your suggestions you can send them to me at my email um we are trying to work on something for NAGPRA and let's see I'm interested in questions of how to continue to care for collections and collaboration with artists and communities while still maintaining the ownership of the objects yes um and then there's this what about acquiring an object for exhibit and then the entire exhibit is going to be sold after it's run so I guess that's from Charlie Iverson in Minneapolis hmm well if you're acquiring an object just for an exhibit would you I don't think you would accession the object into your collection would you yeah I don't think so you just it would just be for the exhibit and so you would do with it what you wish yeah that would sort of be yeah the question is interesting because one of the objections one of the things that came up way back in 1991 about um the code of ethics um was that science museums were um were changing at that point in time they were getting rid of a lot of their collections and becoming science centers and they were worried about just this question they were afraid that if you you know that things in they would be sort of prohibited from selling things that they bought to use to create an exhibit and then once the exhibit was over that they didn't need anymore and they would they would sell or get rid of um so they were worried about this situation but um because they were afraid people would perceive the objects as part of their collection so but the objects really aren't part of their collection so it wasn't an issue but still it's a yeah so there are two more questions your lowest bait says uh is there some significance to the beetles no they're just a it's a collection yes and it's nice to look at while we're it right instead of having the evaluation link right here in the middle don't forget to fill that um and uh Nancy Massimers says when items do not fit our scope I would find another museum that would like them and that's that's right right and in fact in for the international council of museums code of ethics they um because many many many of the museums that belong to icon are um government museums um in those cases that icon very strongly recommends that when you do accessioning the first thing that you do is find some other museum that can take the object rather than just um you know immediately sell the object or do whatever you're going to do with it so being able to find another museum that can use what you have when it's outside the scope of your collections is a is the right way to go yeah okay so I think that's it and um thank you so much and I will collect all of the websites that people added to the chat box I'll add them to the ethics handout and Sally is going to give me a list of places where you might find missing objects is that right yes yeah stolen objects but and then I will stolen objects yeah and then I'll add that too so on as soon as you no longer see the ad for this on the home page of our website that means it's posted and I will post all the the handouts I will post the slides and the recording so thank you very much and don't forget mayday we're going to do the facebook live and then on the 17th of may we'll do deaccessioning so thanks a lot and thank you Sally yeah thank you okay bye bye bye