 Time to pass the audio off to our host, Susan Barger, on behalf of the FAIC. Go ahead, Susan. Hi, everyone. We're very pleased. This is the last of our first legal issues series that we're presenting with ARCS. So we're glad to see all of you here, and I see that we still have people increasing. I'm going to run through my slides quickly and then I'll turn it over to Leslie Jones. So remember, if you have questions and you want an answer from a person, use the Connecting to Collections Care Online Community Discussion Form. You have to register for it, but you're quite welcome to ask questions and get answers. And I'm also going to begin posting some announcements there, so take a look at it. And you can follow us on Facebook, you can like us on Twitter. If you're not part of the Connecting to Collections Care Announce list, sir, this is the address and you can join it there or send me an email and I'll add you to it. This is my email address and feel free to contact me about anything. Okay, and this is what's coming up. Next week we're going to have a webinar on outdoor sculpture and the beginning of June we have one on taking care of cemeteries and then we have one on running a Kickstarter campaign. And then we'll have a little bit of a break and the end of July. We're going to have one on ivory and a also a really interesting thing the beginning of August about emergency planning for collections of moving animals. And so just keep an eye on our, our homepage for details about upcoming webinars. And now I'm going to turn this over to Leslie Jones and she's going to give our presentation today. So Leslie. Thank you Susan and thank you Mike as well for all of your help in putting this presentation together making this possible for everyone. I want to thank you all especially to for coming and for listening in on this discussion I think this will be very beneficial for all of you. I know that clearly this has been very beneficial for me as well as for Cheekwood in the deaccession that we have most recently taken into our five year plan that finished in 2017. So just to start oops. Okay, we're good. So just to start off I think that you know facts and figures and graphics are always a good way to jump off here. As some of you may know or may not know museums preserve and protect more than one billion objects, which is quite a staggering number. This is coming from 2004 so we can also assume that many things have changed and that number grows now that we're in 2017. And also American art may not be what each of you and your institutions collect but it is what Cheekwood collects. And there's a remarkable figure that 21 million of those one billion objects are American art. So that's just a fun little fact to throw in there. This pie chart also I think is something that's important to keep into in your consideration with deaccessions. It just shows essentially what UNESCO believes every institution's division of their areas, especially space I should say in a museum should have. And I sort of look at this as a fantasy because this is certainly not what Cheekwood has. And in taking on a deaccession we certainly want to make sure that we have adequate space for objects which is a consideration that we took into the work that we've done just to make sure that we can adequately care for these objects since we are their custodians. Just an outline of what we'll be going through today and these are my organized thoughts. We will first be surveying the situation prior to a deaccession. Also going through what you can do proactively to make sure your deaccession runs smoothly as well as ethically. And then going into the research part of a deaccession which is quite a large chunk of what you should be taking into consideration while doing, before doing as well as during your deaccession process. And then finally going through action and dispersal. My not so organized thoughts are the insight and hindsight of the deaccession process that we've just gone through. I think it's important to note that in every deaccession you will always learn something new. There is no formula for doing a deaccession since every institution is different. And I think it's important to keep that in mind because you are doing the best you can with the resources that you have. And so this is just one example but I do think that these processes will be helpful. So just to give you some background of what Cheekwood is so that you can understand the size of our institution as well as sort of our context in the larger museum landscape. Cheekwood was a private estate that was constructed between 1929 and 1932. It was a private family home from 1932 until 1957. And it was donated in 1957 to become the Tennessee Botanical Gardens and Fine Arts Center. In subsequent years the name Cheekwood was embraced again. That was the name of the estate originally and so we are now the Cheekwood estate and gardens. We opened to the public in 1916 with a museum space and a historic home. And our collection categories have included permanent and archival materials. We have now also added an education collection as a part of this deaccession process. And our collection overview really resulted in an encyclopedic approach with holdings of works on paper, artist books, video art, sculpture, paintings, photography, ceramics, et cetera, et cetera. We really took on over the decades purpose of being sort of the sole public art museum in Nashville. And that changed dramatically with time, especially going into the 21st century. Just in terms of my background and getting to Cheekwood, I joined in January 2015 as a full-time short-term contract employee with the hope to research, develop, and implement an historic restoration of specific rooms that were in that historic home where the museum is also located. We have about 10 gallery spaces located on the second floor where the family and staff bedrooms were originally located, and those are where our collections are primarily on view to the public. And by September of 2015, I had been asked to break my contract and was brought on as a permanent employee charged with running the museum department in addition to the historic restoration project and managing our three full-time employees. So we might be a medium-sized institution in terms of our collection, but we are a small staff, which makes up of a registrar, an exhibition designer, and a preparator. So this is, again, it's for context. The left image is from Cheekwood in the drawing room in 1934. The right was the Cheekwood drawing room in 2015 where we housed our Worcester porcelain collection as well as a few decorative arts pieces. This was a part of a historic restoration project that I've been working on, and it just sort of gives you a sense of what it is that we've been working with here. The room has now been fully restored, and on top of that, we were also doing this deaccession. These are not-so-flattering shots of our collection storage spaces, so not much left to be desired there. These are from 2015. Much has changed in the past few years, thankfully. And here's another lovely image, too, of collections as they were found in situ in 2015. We had a lot of architectural elements in addition to the permanent collection, which also needed to be factored into our collection scope and plans. So in 2012, before I joined Cheekwood, a few things happened, of which I also inherited the outcomes. In 2012, there was a collection assessment that was under the direction of the former curator, and the collection assessment took place bringing in outside professionals and disciplines that were relative to the collection subjects. And from those assessments, a collecting plan was developed by the Art Committee, which is a subcommittee of our Board of Trustees, and by our staff members. The results of that dialogue provided the following as a general overview. That Cheekwood would collect American art between 1910 and 1970. The big question is, what does that mean? And that's something that we hear going back and refining now. And also, we've discussed to, you know, what are the precedents of those artists and artistic movements or work that was directly descended from those artistic movements? How can we incorporate that? So nothing, this doesn't necessarily a perfect document, but it certainly paved a good direction for us. We also decided to focus on our outdoor contemporary sculpture collection. We have a mile-long outdoor sculpture trail. The question contemporary, of course, is somewhat loose, and we're trying to also define what contemporary means in terms of long-term projections. And then also to focus on our niche collections. Those are rather random and unclear, and we'll get to what that actually means. But the collecting plan certainly informed the 2014 to 2016 deaccession. And those were objects identified by the staff and presented to the art committee. We did a vetting of sale options, a vetting of transfer options, and final lists were presented to the executive committee and board of trustees for their approval and vote. And we also did a rather expansive initiative to make an awareness to all of the former donors or individuals who we received gifts from to let them know what was happening to their objects, and then finally did the dispersal of the objects. So these are just some images from our mile-long outdoor sculpture trail. There are 15 pieces on this sculpture trail, all internationally recognized artists. On the left is James Turrell. There's Sophie Ryder, John Scott, Doug Hollis, along with many others. We also have a wonderful American art collection. Andy Warhol, John Singer Sargent, Robert and Rye, William Edmondson. So a really, really wonderful collection here. So in sort of looking back, I'm going to go into hindsight first. Defining the institution's collecting plan and direction was originally prompted by an overarching organization-wide identity crisis. Cheekwood couldn't quite figure out if it was a museum or a garden because we do have a 55-acre botanical garden as a part of the institution. And it created some internal struggles, and it was also creating some financial hardship, which we had had a financial hardship for many decades, which I'm sure several of your institutions can also relate to. And within this process in the past four years in developing a collection assessment, doing a collecting plan, this all took place in four years. We also added on to that doing the entire deaccession, historic restoration, a collection-wide inventory, and the launch of a master plan. And I think it's very important for all of us to remember with deaccessions. I'm painting a very broad and vivid picture here, but deaccessions take a long time, and they require a lot of very detailed thoughts, a lot of discussions internally. And so it's something that when you have a lot of other projects going on with your institution, it's good to think about whether it is the best time to do a deaccession, because it does take quite a bit of effort from all sides of your organization. I see a question over here from Lacey. Just read this real quick. Who made this identity crisis call, and how was it related to leadership? I feel like hard truths about collecting do not always fall on thankful ears. So yes, there were a lot of hard truths that went into this, and this all spurred in coordination with a new president and CEO who came on at Cheekwood. And her goal was really to make sure that we were a financially viable institution, and she has done a really, really wonderful job. And I see that we will get to that a little bit further, too. But it was our new president and CEO who wanted to make sure that everyone on our board, as well as on our staff, as well as our visitors and our members, understood what Cheekwood was, and that we were servicing our community the best way we possibly could to make sure that we would again have visitation and support both financially as well as from attendance. So with surveying the situation, we're just going to dive right in. The biggest thing you need to remember with doing a deaccession and planning for one is to make sure you have a completed inventory before the deaccession begins. I cannot stress how incredibly important this is to know where your objects are, to have photographs of them, to have your files updated, and I will stress this throughout this entire program. It's also important to locate your institution's collections management guidelines, your collecting plan or collection scope, and previous deaccession material, if applicable. And if you don't have a collections management guideline, if you don't have a collecting plan, you've never done them, we will get to those more in a few sections. So also, you should identify what you are trying to achieve through deaccession. Do you actually need to do a deaccession? That is a very important question to ask yourself. Are you reviewing a part of your collection now with plans to review other parts later, or is this a full collection assessment and deaccession? So what Cheekwood did to make ours more manageable was focus on fine art first and we'll be looking at decorative arts in the coming years. Does your institution's collection need to be more purposeful and thematic? And that, of course, is where Cheekwood, we needed to focus our collection. And that spurred, I'll just sort of track back a little bit, that spurred from understanding how the Nashville landscape was changing and new offerings that were being made by other institutions that had been recently formed. We wanted to make sure that what we had was purposeful and was the best that it could possibly could be. Does the outcome include hope for improved collections' care? And again, this is important because you are custodians of your collections and you should have enough space to take care of your objects, both in exhibition as well as storage. And is your institutional focus and mission a part of the decision-making process? I think that is very important. You should be taking into consideration the reason why your institution was formed, what it was supposed to provide the public, and what your mission is as well. So in terms of insight, it became quite clear through the Cheekwood deaccession process that the institution's purpose had changed significantly in the past three decades. And this again stems into what was being offered in the community that was new. So we were the singular destination in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s as a large institution for art forms, so that sort of spurred Cheekwood to offer all art forms, movements, and genres. And once the Seoul Art Museum in the area was now bidding for the attention of patrons, visitors, and volunteers, we needed to reconsider what it was that we would offer our visitors. So for context in case any of you are familiar with the Nashville institutions, we have the Frist Center for Visual Arts that was opened in the early 2000s, which is a wonderful institution. They host traveling exhibitions. They don't have a collection, but their focus is on global art, which is very different from what Cheekwood could possibly focus on in terms of what our infrastructure could do. There are also several wonderful institutions that are smaller in Nashville, including the Vanderbilt University Art Galleries, the Fisk University Art Collection. We also have the Tennessee State Museum, as well as several historic homes in the area, most of which date to the antebellum period. So we wanted to look at all of those different places in our city and see what we could sort of have as a unique opportunity for people to come and see. We also looked at our region in Middle Tennessee, as well as the greater state of Tennessee, seeing where other sculpture parks were located and what they were able to focus on, and there are several sculpture parks in the state of Tennessee, but none of those are woodland trails, and that's something I should have specified earlier. Our one-mile sculpture trail is a woodland trail, so that also helps us really sort of develop a unique experience for people to come and see and take part in. And in terms of those niche collections that I had mentioned earlier, those were chosen to stay mostly because of their donor history, and that's always a tricky issue, but it is something that we felt was a part of Cheekwood and what Cheekwood has been known for, so some of those quote-unquote niche collections would stay as well. And other insight, this seems to be sort of a repetition of what I just said, but this is sort of going back to what can distinguish Cheekwood from our other local institutions. Other questions to ask internally, does your institution have a strategic plan? Do you make a five-year plan every five years? What is involved in that? What else are you doing during that five-year plan? Has your institution carried out deaccessions in the past, and why? Those are also always very helpful documents to go and look back at when you're trying to do a new deaccession. Does your staff have adequate time to appropriately carry out a deaccession? Do you have the resources to ethically and logically carry out a deaccession? Do you have legal counsel, experienced staff, and what are your hopes for your newly defined and refined collection? Also, in terms of hindsight, I think it's important to always question motives, including your own. Why are you deaccessioning? What do you want to deaccession? Cheekwood's most recent inventory, deaccession was largely based off the findings from an independent collection assessment. The results of those assessments really developed what the list of objects were for deaccession. After inheriting this situation, I don't think that necessarily was probably the best direction to go. I think the collection assessment was incredibly helpful, and I do encourage your institutions, if you have the funds and the time, having outside opinions come in is very important. However, it's important to really assess the assessment yourself and try and figure out what, even though somebody from an outside perspective might not think that that object has a great value or worth in their own context, how is it within the context of your institution? Also, to understand and sort of measure the appropriateness of input from your governing body, as well as curator's strengths that understand the institution's origins rather than a curatorial preference for study. And the founding principles, again, however, were not conducive to the institution's current and future offerings as a nonprofit organization as a sort of encyclopedic institution. We needed to make sure that we could refine things down, and I'm grateful that we were able to do that. So next in your deaccession steps, being proactive really is going to save you a lot of time, as well as a lot of last-minute stress. Again, inventory. Inventories take a lot of time. But according to AAM, institutions should have a full collection inventory accomplished every 10 years. But periodic inventories should also be taking place on an ongoing basis whenever there is time or whenever objects are moved or you're in an actual collection storage space. Making sure you're keeping track of those objects is incredibly important and time-saving in the long run. We did not have an inventory completed in the last 10 years, so I can speak from a personal experience. So as part of the inventory process, make an effort to thoroughly understand object origins from a curatorial and collections management perspective. If there's any information missing, what is it? How can you find that missing information? Or is it just going to be left blank? Do you have an up-to-date information on the donors themselves? Do you know their addresses? Do you know if they're deceased? Do they have any current dealings with your institution? What other objects are related to this specific object and how? So what I mean by that is if you're looking at an object and considering it to be slated for deaccession, does it have any connection to other objects in a larger thematic approach rather than just as a singular entity? And then also it's good to prepare yourself for the unknown with inventories. Specifically, found in collections objects, there are always going to be instances where unless you are a super perfect museum or an institution, and I applaud you for that, but it's like a unicorn. I'm not sure if you actually exist. Sometimes there are found in collections objects. You will also probably find objects that don't have accession tags or numbers on them, which of course can be quite difficult in trying to locate all the information, files, etc. And also just brace yourself if you find any damaged objects in your collection during the inventory process. You never quite know what can take place, so it's always just good to be prepared. So in hindsight from the cheekwood perspective, again, we did not have that collection-wide inventory prior to the deaccession process, but we are taking actions to complete our inventory now. If we had had a completed inventory prior to the collection assessment that took place in 2012 and prior to the beginning of the deaccession, we would have had much fewer backtracking occurrences. So again, with being proactive, it's also very important to discuss and have ample conversations with other individuals and departments at your institution, figure out who is responsible for the inventory, which as you all probably know, it's going to be a collections manager or registrar. Also with deaccession selection lists, generally speaking, that should be left to the curatorial staff. With donor research and outreach and communication, this is something that your executive level and development departments should very much be involved in. I know that we keep donor files in the museum file sections as well as in our development sections, and it's always good to combine that information because sometimes information doesn't get copied or overlapped the way that you would hope it would. And then also external inquiry management, and your marketing team really should be involved in understanding what a deaccession process is, being able to adequately define it, as well as preparing any language that might come across in terms of responding to inquiry either from individuals or with the press specifically too. And we scheduled regular meetings to discuss all of this. I will say that that is incredibly helpful, and I encourage everyone to do that as well. If you do not have a collections management policy, and I hope that is not the case for any of you, it is important that you build one in advance of pursuing a deaccession and ensure there is a specific section relating to accessioning and deaccessioning objects in that collections management policy. That is very, very important because those are guidelines that you can go back and refer to should any controversy come up or serious questions about why a deaccession is taking place. We built our collections management policy based on the language provided by the American Alliance of Museums and the International Council of Museums. And make sure your policies are reflected in your documents, your other institutional documents such as your governing body bylaws, because deaccessioning and accessioning votes are very important, as well as having your board of trustees or your board of directors understand where their limitations are, and your conflict of interest agreements that also would go to your employees as well as your governing body, your employee handbook, and your security procedures. So just in case you don't have a collections management policy, I just wanted to go over this quickly. The definition we have here is from American Alliance of Museums, and it's a policy that is a set of policies that address various aspects of collections management. This policy defines the scope of a museum's collection and how the museum cares for and makes collections available to the public. A collections management policy also explains the roles of the party's responsible for managing a museum's collections. And this is a list of what they recommend that you have in your collections management policy. It doesn't necessarily have to be in this order or in these exact terms, but it is important to have particularly your mission, vision, and history incorporated into there. Your policies for loans, for acquisitions, for deaccessioning, for conservation and care, for your documentation procedures, and your legal and ethical considerations on intellectual property. Also, informing and educating anyone involved is extremely important and a proactive measure that should not go unlocked. You need to inform and educate yourself first and foremost no matter what your position is in your institution. Make sure your staff and governing body know and understand what a deaccession is. It's sometimes a hard word for some people to get out if they're not all too familiar with it, but it is incredibly important to go over the meaning of the word as well as understanding even case studies of other institutions that have done deaccessions. And also just very much making sure that you know who the official point of contact is for anyone who needs to know more or have more education on your staff. Your staff and governing body need to be educated also on the projected timeline of the deaccession, in particular making your board and or committees aware of future meetings when their review and vote is required. Because you do need votes to have a deaccession approved and so that is important to make sure that you have adequate representation at those meetings. So a few things to just think about also with those individuals and deaccessions with your governing body, questions to ask, can a board member or subcommittee members suggest a work of art to be a deaccessioned? Yes, they are more than welcome to ask and sort of bring anything to the forefront that might be interesting. You have to have a vote put on that object specifically. You absolutely do not. You do not have an obligation to move on that recommendation. You are the professional here and it is actually you yourself in charge of the institution or in charge of this deaccession process to make sure that it's what you think is best for the institution. If a member of the board or subcommittee has previously donated or sold a work of art to your institution and now that work of art is slated for deaccession is that member allowed to vote on approving the deaccession. That is also a definite no. We had a few members of our committee abstain from voting so I think that's important just to make sure that their emotions as well as their personal preferences don't necessarily come into a play for the vote specifically to get these processes moving. And if the object goes up for sale, can a member of the staff or a member of the board or subcommittee acquire the object? That is also an absolute no. These are questions that we received quite frequently and I think it's important to review resources that outline why. They also help you build language to respond to questions about objects going up for sale. It really is a huge conflict of interest and ethically it's not ever looked at as a good thing because if a person from staff is recommending or as a part of your deaccession it seems as though they are then trying to have personal gain from contributing to the deaccession and then trying to acquire peace. The same goes for a board with voting on objects. They're voting for it to be removed from the collection and so therefore they are also trying to have a personal gain if they vote and then want to acquire it themselves. So the next process in all of this really is just taking the time to do your research. It is so incredibly important to know everything that you possibly can in advance of taking really deliberate action. So if applicable, take the time to understand previous deaccessions. I've mentioned this before. Make sure that you know why they took place. I reviewed and this was actually during in the midst of our deaccessions since I sort of inherited this entire process while it was already underway. I went back and looked through all of the files that we had on previous deaccessions which there were only about three which had a variety of different individuals that were on our governing committees and governing body then as well as very different staff members and also of course a different institutional direction. So understanding the psychology of why deaccessions have taken place in the past really can help you understand where the collection has come to and why you are now again addressing this and also what objects were deaccessioned during those previous deaccessions. These were also very helpful conversations and glad that our previous staff members did take adequate notes from any meetings that took place as well as saving correspondence because that really does help us in terms of understanding where we came from and where we're going. And always take the time to review and research object origins. Who gave the work or how did you receive it? Was it through sale or through donation and what did the agreement look like? You may possibly find in some of these agreements which I know we did some clauses that have restrictions in them. I know today more than ever there is the norm that you should not be accepting gifts or sales with any restrictions but that wasn't always the case and some of the objects we were deaccessioning came from decades going by. So we wanted to make sure from a legal perspective that we understood what all of the language was and to make sure that we were in the clear to move forward with this process. Was there meaning or purpose with the acceptance or approval of the object? Sometimes you can look back and see what possible director of your institution in the past may have intended this gift to do for the institution. It's again good to put yourself in their shoes and sort of understand why the object is there. Does the object have a market history? That's also just helpful information for you to know. Does the object have an exhibition history? How has it been presented to the public in what context? For different exhibitions and different exhibition themes? What has it added to your collection in the past? What don't you think it adds to the collection now? Does the object have a distinctive cultural history? This comes into play if you're dealing with any sort of ethnographic materials, whether they're Native American or internationally ethnographic materials. That will possibly become a part of your deaccession action later on if you need to make outreach to NAGPRA or UNESCO. And do you have clear title and ownership? That is also extremely important. Understanding that you have clear title and ownership should be coming from what your agreements say, which means that whoever sold you the object or whoever gave you the object, they should have also had clear and title ownership. We make sure that in our gift language that we ask an individual, do they have the authority to sell or give these objects? So legal perspective at least keeps you in the clear to know that you have that clear title ownership. So hindsight, in the beginning, when this deaccession was taking place, Cheekwood did not do a thorough review of our previous deaccessions. Some objects actually that were on this current deaccession list had been previously deaccessioned and noted meeting minutes and in a deaccession file, but were still on site and were being reviewed all over again. So that was a complete waste of time, unfortunately. We, of course, learned that lesson and reviewed things probably about a quarter of the way into the voting that took place. By looking at previous deaccession documents, we found extremely valuable information on the development of the collection as I spoke to earlier, who was involved and how decisions were made, which really does benefit understanding this process. With further research, and I think it's important to find consultation on potential legal parameters, we have on our board of trustees legal counsel represented and it's always great to just be able to speak with an individual who is an attorney. They may not necessarily be a specific cultural patrimony or an art attorney, but they do have those resources that can be helpful to you. This helps understand maybe some difficult gift or acquisition language, and they can also help you find the best resources for restitution, which I spoke to earlier, if you need to deal with NAGPRA or UNESCO. And also looking into what was the donor relationship to your institution. It seems superficial, but it is important in a perfect world. It wouldn't matter and you would think a donor would want you to do whatever best for the institution with those works of art or objects, but you do need to take them into consideration and understand are they an active or were they formerly a part of a governing body? Are any of their family members now or were they in the past? Are they active or prior significant patrons or any of their family members? Have they passed away and who possibly would manage their estate if they did pass away? Because so many of our institutions likely have repeat donors, people that are great patrons that give over and over again, it's a sensitive issue, but it is something that is very important to take into consideration and have thoughtful conversations about working with those individuals, having more personal conversations with them if you think that there is possibly going to be hurt feelings or any sort of non-positive reaction to your deaccession process. Contact, engage and vet possible dispersal methods. We reviewed this quite thoroughly, which I think was very helpful. We reached out to auction houses early and also to dealers to discuss the possibility of a dispersal of objects, not giving specifics, but just asking those important initial questions. It's also good to see what different auction houses or dealers can offer you, which of course benefits your institution. And ask for client information if they're able to give it and see if there's a possibility to perhaps make contact with any peers or similar individuals or institutions that may have worked in a way that you are working currently. It's just good to sort of have those collegial conversations and learn from the good and the bad and make sure that you're taking everything into consideration. And know and fully understand your ethical obligations with dispersal results. If it's a sale, how can the funds be used? If it's a transfer, who is responsible for what? Oftentimes, I think transfers are probably the first and best way to go with the deaccession. I know that many of these larger overarching museum institutions do as well, but you do have to relinquish any sort of ownership or responsibility for these objects once you do do a transfer or do a sale. So it's just good to understand with a transfer, for example, if you're giving an object to an institution who is responsible for packing and transferring that object physically, how do you take and change all of your hard files or electronic files? It's just good to sort of go through those processes and make sure you have a clear checklist and understanding on both sides of who should be doing what. So insight here. Research destinations before presenting your findings to your board. By destinations I mean dispersal. Have an idea of where you want things to go so that they can be a part of that initial vote and conversation. We did have an approval vote in terms of who we were going to use or our sale dispersal, which was incredibly beneficial in terms of questions that our board came up with that we may not have thought of necessarily. Research your board as well and know who has familial, social or professional relationships with former donors. That again was incredibly helpful for us in terms of seeing who was possibly going to have some insight that we could use in terms of approaching individuals. And also remind your board of their role and obligations. Again, I'm stressing this, can acquire objects, must recuse themselves from voting if there is a conflict of interest. So action and dispersal. Again, put it to a vote. It's incredibly important to make sure that you have the support, the vocal and accounted support of your board of trustees or directors. Should any sort of thoughts or inquiries arise from either past donors or from the media, your board should really have full ownership of this entire process as well as you as staff members. Be organized with your final list of slated items. I think it's very important to not have to have all of your questions answered and where you don't know the answers to ensure that you don't know those answers. It's good just to be honest with all of this. Present your findings to the appropriate higher powers for review and vote. So we brought in our senior level just to make sure that even those who were in the accounting as well as our garden department and marketing and others were very much aware of what was going on. It's not required, but it's just a good checks and balances. Your subcommittees, if you do have subcommittees, they need to vote on these. They need to see these objects as they're being categorized and slated for deaccession. Your executive committee, of course, if there is one as well as your board of trustees and taking notes is very important. We actually recorded most of our conversations and then had them transcribe just so that there was an accurate record for all of us going forward as well. So in hindsight, be sure you have the attention of your audience when going through these lists and make certain that they understand this is their chance to vocalize any questions. In reviewing the list of objects originally slated for deaccession and reviewing some of those minutes from our meetings, it did become clear at some point that the review of objects was done quickly and with little discussion. I actually had to go back a few times and look at objects from a different perspective and see that we actually shouldn't have had that on the deaccession list in terms of our greater goals for what this was supposed to help with our institution. This is just a sample slide. This is, of course, not something you have to do, but when we created those lists, we did them as power points. We had a copy printed off for each person in the room as we were going through the entire list, and then each object had a slide itself that included all this information. So we had, of course, an image of the object, the title of the object in the year, if all was known, the artist, if known, medium, dimensions, and source, which of course is the person who donated it or how you acquired the object, and then a brief rationale for the deaccession. This was not a long and laborious conversation. If you have a rationale for your deaccession, it should be short and sweet. It shouldn't require a whole lot of explanation. That should already sort of be an understood factor in the entire process. Your proposed dispersal method, whether it be a sale or a transfer, and also your rationale for that dispersal method. So just as a sample of this, we actually had some objects that were in our permanent collection that would actually be better suited in our educational collection. So we even discussed how our dispersal was going to be an internal transfer and not necessarily an external transfer, and that fortunately made quite a bit of sense to everyone in that it was still useful for us, but it did not need to be categorized as permanent collection. So in terms of inter-institutional transfers, that's what I just discussed. Things can be moved around from your permanent collection to either archival or educational if you have one. For non-profit institutions, this really is for the benefit of the public, and it's not supposed to be getting you into sainthood, but it is for the benefit of the public to have continual relevance of museums and cultural institutions. And sometimes the most ethical thing to do is to transfer the object to another institution where it can still be on view to the public. Government institutions, there may be an occasion where a government run museum or school may also better benefit from a transfer if the institution can adequately care for the exhibit and exhibit the item. Again, this is for the benefit of the public and maintaining an object's visibility. We did this to the National Public School. We had a portrait, actually, that was a portrait of whom the school was named after, and we thought it was most appropriate that they take care of it. And they were extremely wonderful in talking with us about how can they best take care of the object, and we provided them a lot of great information, and I think it worked out very well for us and for them as well. For for-profit institutions, I personally don't have the experience with transferring an object to a for-profit institution. I know that AAM does have this as a topic of conversation here and there, so it's always good to ask questions. That is something that you have a concern about, but I just wanted to put it here just to keep that in mind. Ensure that responsibilities are clearly understood with any sort of dispersal, with packing and crating, transportation, insurance, photography, use of organization or institution name, and when and how the review of final information occurs. Negotiate the terms of sale if you are selling an object, and be involved with evaluation determinations. Understanding the principles of valuation and differences in valuation is very important for you, first of all as a museum professional, but also in reading the language that goes along with those negotiations. Be involved in developing the contract. If this is a sale, there should be a contract. You should always have something that's legally written and documented. It's important to keep control of your institution's name use and how that gets put into the contract itself and therefore into any sort of sale language, whether it be a catalog or any publicity that's used, and it's good to discuss this with, of course, your marketing team to ensure that proper use of the name is consistent. And make sure you're given the right to review and approve any marketing materials, just again to make sure that your institution is still being represented the way that you want to be represented. So communication, of course, is always key, too, as an action itself. Keep communication open and be prepared to share information. Communicate with your donors. We wrote a very extensive letter to each donor outlining why we were doing a deaccession, the objects that they had given us that were up for deaccession, and what our plans were to do with those deaccession items, whether it was going to be a transfer or a sale. And so that was very helpful for us. Communicate with whomever is selling these items or accepting the objects. Keep that communication going even after the actual physical transfer of property has taken place. Communicate with your development staff when objects go up for sale in case donors want information, because we have had that actually take place where they'd like to know when those objects are going up for sale in case they want to re-require them or it's just something that they have an interest in. It's just a courtesy and something that's helpful to keep a good relationship and rapport. And, of course, also communicate with your accounting staff about the cost of a deaccession and incoming funds and their use, so they know that specific funds that are coming in should be used for only specific purposes. This, again, should even just be in your general institutional documents so that whomever is on staff understands both the process of the deaccession as well as the outcome. There's an insight here. How would we explain the rationale to the public and not to mention former and current potential donors? Collectively, Sheik would draft a language for media inquiries and to contact these former donors. It was a two-fold strategy. One was to create internal points of contact for inquiries and provide consistent messaging. We've had individuals call our front desk. We've had them call our marketing department. We've had them call our president's CEO. We've had them call me. We've had them call our maintenance staff because those are the numbers they could find. And it's extremely important that everyone on staff knows who to direct those inquiries to and also that each of those individuals, if it's more than one, have that consistent messaging. And they all are on board with why it is that you've done this and how they can be of any further help to those individuals and those inquiries. And again, those formal letters we sent out to donors or to their, sorry, I'm going to say heirs instead of hairs, pardon me, just letting them know what was happening. And in some cases, we had private meetings to discuss what was going on. And to be quite honest, once we had this wonderful rationale, when we described what our collection plan was, Cheekwood's history as an institution where we hope to go in the future, we had almost no negative feedback from any of our donors. They were all extremely supportive of us. They wanted the institution to thrive. They were appreciative of us letting them know what we were, what our plans were and what we hoped the outcome would be. So being honest with individuals, whether it be from a donor perspective or even from media inquiries, I think really honesty is the best policy here because if you're doing a deaccession, you should be doing it for the betterment of your institution. And there should be no other rationale for doing it than just that specifically. The biggest thing, both for you yourself and for your future employees, whether it be 10 years from now or 100 years from now, record everything. Make sure that you are printing off emails, that you are photocopying correspondence, that you are making specific files that are clearly labeled and in appropriate places so that you have an accurate record of everything that has taken place. It really is important to ensure that you have all of the information at your fingertips now as well as going forward. Some further insight just in terms of when your action takes place in terms of dispersal. Designate who on staff is in charge of keeping and maintaining those files. Generally it is a collections manager or registrar but there will also be other files that come in that need some cross-reference in terms of development and marketing. So just ensure that you have an open communication with your staff about the maintenance of files and how that should be done. Record in multiples. We always have both a hard and a digital copy. You should have digital files on your computer that are easily accessible from remote locations if necessary. Save emails, attachments. It's easy to do. It doesn't take that much time and it's just something that's very, very helpful in the long run. And also hard copies of correspondence and notes, etc. Another big no-no here. Do not ever, ever, ever throw away, destroy or get rid of object files from objects that have been dispersed. You never know when you'll get an inquiry 30 years down the road that so and so found a letter in their grandmother's attic that said they gave this object what happened to it, etc. Keep the hard files and put copies of correspondence documents in those files. Mark the objects as deaccessioned along with the date and year. What we do at Cheekwood is we remove the actual deaccessioned object file from where all of our files are located. But we do put in its place either a Manila sort of division folder or something that says that that object with that accession number did once exist, that it has been moved to another file and the date on which it was deaccessioned. And then all of the other paper and rationale for that object being deaccessioned is actually in a deaccessioned file location rather than mixed in with all of your active object files. It is incredibly important to keep records and to ensure that you have any questions answered in the future as well as currently. And again, this is relocating that object file. Moving into a different location, make sure things are clearly divided and date and year is very important as well as pertinent information such as title, artist, date and medium. In that new folder that goes in the object file location. It's just easier for reference. It's less running around if they're in different actual physical locations. So just make it easy on yourself. That's one of the biggest things. It's common sense for you as well as whoever might have your position in the future. So how can you avoid deaccessions in the future? Well, stick to your collections management policy and collecting plan. Those are very helpful documents from an internal perspective. They are your guiding principles as an institution and they should help you in understanding why you even should consider a deaccession. Review and discuss your collecting plan on a regular basis. We have a four year policy where every four years we discuss and review our collecting plan just to make sure that it's keeping in line with where we are as an institution. Do not accept gifts that are irrelevant to your institution. Your collecting plan is a great excuse. We have wonderful people in our community that want to give us lots of very interesting objects, even objects that are from artists who are internationally recognized but just don't go with our collecting plan. And by citing that you have a collecting plan, it does help ensure and also comfort an individual once you give them essentially a decline on the gift. By just stating it's not a part of your policy and you think it would be better suited somewhere else, you can also help give them information about an institution that might be better to take it. It really helps buffer any situation in terms of any hurt feelings that you're afraid of creating. Also do your diligence on offered gifts or acquisitions before committing. It's very important to research the objects that might be coming in and understanding their history as well as really thinking thoroughly about what they could do to contribute to your institution or how they may not contribute to your institution. Ensure you have the capacity to care for an object before committing. Make sure that you actually have adequate storage space in case it doesn't get put on exhibit right away. Make sure that your exhibition space can actually handle a size or a weight limit that you can actually get it into your building. That's of course always a tricky situation to be in if you're in a historic structure or anything that is not necessarily originally created to be an art institution or a collecting institution. Think of how you can utilize an object and honor the object and enhance your institution through the ownership and display of that object. So in conclusion, these sessions are complicated. I think we've all started to realize that and probably realize that far in advance of discussing it today. These sessions are very time consuming and that should also be taken into consideration if you ever want to do one or if you ever need to do one. These sessions require careful and sincere thought and planning. They do not end with dispersal. There are still going to be questions that are asked and references made to objects after their deaccession. So it's important to keep that information in perpetuity. Deaccessions should be organized and produced for the benefit of your institution as well as for that object itself. Deaccessions exist for a reason to benefit your institution if it is necessary. But deaccessions, as a final note, should always be your last resort. I know it's hard for anyone to try and fathom the fact that an object might not necessarily be in its best place in your organization. It's something that you should very much take into careful consideration before you do it. So that is my last slide. I see that there are lots of conversation going through all of this. So I want to make sure that I go back and answer as many of these as I possibly can. If you don't mind, I'm just going to scroll back up to the very beginning. Lacey, I feel like I may have answered your question about the identity crisis. Is that correct? If you just want to put in the questions, comments. I'm happy to read the questions for you if you want, or they're often the parking lot if you want to check through there. Yes, that's where I look right now. I'm putting the evaluation link up here, so please do an evaluation when we finish. Great, thank you. Kathleen King, was there any negative feedback from donors when you informed them that their donations were being deaccessioned? How much due diligence is needed if donors are not readily tracked down? So from our experience with this specific deaccession, as I said before, there was one individual who was not entirely pleased, but that individual hadn't been involved with Cheekwood for probably 40 years. And after explaining to this person sort of what was going on and what had changed within even our community, it was a very long conversation. He did start to come around and understand our position and said that he'd like to be kept in contact with about how things were progressing. So for the most part, just having thoughtful conversations and not being super defensive, it really was helpful in sort of talking with those individuals. In terms of how much due diligence is needed if donors are not readily tracked down, we did as much as is humanly possible. But there are, of course, people who you cannot find where they've moved if they've retired and moved to another country or another part of the country, or if they've passed away and you just can't seem to find who might be next in line in terms of an heir or a manager of a state. So we still drafted the letters and have them on file, but we weren't able to send all of them down, all of them out to individuals. Also, there are some things that came back in the mail, and that's the last known contact information we have for that person. So that's as much as we could do, and we felt that that was adequate. And I think that as long as you're of the impression that you have adequately done your best, I think that that is just fine. So from Brad, your first step should be to review your mission statement. I completely agree. Mission statements are incredibly important, and I hope that in reviewing your mission statement, it is still relevant to your institution, because I know sometimes that that can take place, and that it's a little bit outdated. So in terms of assessing and reviewing all of the important documents and information about your institution in advance, yes, your mission statement should definitely be relevant. In terms of Lacey, donor history, yes, what kind of independent collection assessment can you or do you feel going into more detail about this independent assessment entailed? So yes, I can certainly do that. We had individuals come from a variety of disciplines to look at our collections holdings. We had Dr. Sylvia Yount come and look at American paintings. Dr. Charles Venerable came and looked at our decorative arts. Michael Holliman came to look at ethnographic objects. Joseph Mella came to look at our Japanese prints, since that was a rather large collection. We had Sven Brunyan come and work at works on paper. Carol Ellers worked at photography, and Jed Morse worked at sculpture. That's pretty long and excessive list of individuals, but it was very helpful in terms of bringing them in and having them see what we had. Because at that time we had one curator, and his background was really in just an American art of the post-modern movement. So these individuals came in and they looked at large samples of our collection. All of their conversations were recorded and then sent out for transcription. And they were sort of found and put into a collection assessment book that also has a written report that each of those individuals wrote on their experience at Cheekwood and outlining and highlighting specific objects in both positive and negative ways. So that was incredibly helpful for us and good information to have going forward. In terms of Jesse Dunlop, is there a way to distinguish between items in the collections that you want to keep for display, but not necessarily as part of the collection, so that they don't later become found in collections? I'm sure items that you want to keep in the collection that you do want to keep for display. In terms of from our perspective and from my just professionally, if we have an object in our collection, it should be meant for display, just depending on how much it can be displayed of course, that always goes into the medium and understanding what it can take. But if it's not, but not necessarily as a part of the collection, I mean that's hard to dissect. I think if it's not something you want to keep on display, but if it's something that could be a reference object, maybe that's what you're considering, it might be best to have that as part of either a teaching collection or an educational prop collection or even into your archival collection. I hope that that's sort of the direction you were asking. I see here, we are a historic site, so items such as blankets and suitcases. So do you ever, Jesse, do you ever put those on view for the public or you just have those sort of as reference items? I see Lacey's discussing tiered collections. I am personally not professionally familiar with tiered collections myself, so that I can't speak to. So they're on display, but they're not a part of your permanent collection. I think that would be considered something like a prop collection. Would it be considered support materials that are ephemeral and can be used up? So if you had blankets and they get maws, you can just pitch them. Yes, and that's what we do as well. So our education collection slash prop collection has different, and this is outlined in our collections management policy, has different restrictions with those objects. They still receive accession numbers, but their accession numbers are distinguished with an E ahead of that accession number, so we know it's an education item. But that's how we help with things not being found in collections because they are categorized in an organized way. In terms of Caitlyn Spangler-Bickel's question, what role, if any, do conservators play? We are not fortunate enough to have a conservator on site as part of our staff, but I do know many institutions are fortunate enough to have that. I think that there's, in terms of objects that you might find damaged or that are a part of assessing their condition, whether they're adequate to be kept in your collection or put on deaccession. If you have a conservator, I think it's very important to keep them involved in this process. We unfortunately don't have one, so that's why I didn't touch upon that. But, of course, having roles specifically for each person on your staff is very helpful, and if a conservator can contribute to the curator's selections for deaccession, then I think that it's great if you have that resource. From Kelsey, small museum pro here, I can only imagine having separate staff members for all these tasks. Yes, I mean, we are all different sizes. Each museum really does have differentiation of who wears what hats or who wears multiple hats, so I can definitely sympathize with Kelsey. I've had to wear many of these hats myself, so it's doing the best you can, and I'm sure that you and your staff do that. Lauren, can we have a copy of this collection management policy? I will ask. I'm not sure if I can release that, but I do think it might be something that I could share, but I'll ask and just make sure that I have approval to do that. From Amber, how appropriate is it to involve interns in these types of projects? Deaccessions and inventories include a lot of confidential information. Yes, that is a very, very good point. Essentially what we had with interns, their role in working with us was more so just to make copies. Of course, there are some confidential pieces of information in those files when we had to duplicate them, but essentially as an intern, they too had to also sign a confidentiality agreement and had all of our interns have to undergo background checks. So that's just a matter of how your institution wants to handle that, but I think it would be important to either have a document that they have to sign, and it's basically trusting those people that you've vetted to take on those positions. From Linda, I may have missed this, but it sounds like a good deal of money was spent in the assessments and the process, transcriptions, etc. Is that correct? Yes, there were significant funds that were spent and allocated to the assessment itself. Fortunately, we had two people as a part of our governing body that donated those funds to do that because they understood the need, and so they also had the process named after them, which is always a good way to try and sell something to a donor or to a patron. From Victoria Parker, responding to Jesse. Our museum, the Fenton History Center in Jamestown, New York, marks things that we are keeping but not accessioning with what we call an F number and gives it to education, and we have a record of it, but it's not a part of the collection. Yes, that's a great way to do that. Julianne, responding to Amber. These have been turds that might depend on the situation. I completely agree. Their library did a massive de-assession last year and used student workers to help pull carts of books as identified on a printout and also mark out our labeling and box, the books for donation. Yeah, that's a great way to use that type of help. That's all sort of looking at responses. I'll go on to Kate from Chicago. What do you do if you discover an object in collections marked de-assession or whose catalog record indicates that it was de-assession but it's still in the museum? Yes, we actually encountered that. Startling to say the least, but if it is to be, hopefully it's going to be a part of, or you would have slated it already, for another de-assession too if you are doing a de-assession. From our experience, we didn't do that initial assessment of previous de-assessions, which is why I brought that up in this program. If it has been de-assessioned and you can prove that through a variety of materials, both if it's marked on the object as well as in the catalog record, then that can be included as part of your dispersal plan. If you're not doing a de-assession right now and it looks like it is marked for de-assession, I think that that really is a situation that you have to go through on a case-by-case basis and understand if it's just one object, is it something that you think you can find a dispersal method for? Could you transfer it to someone else if it's appropriate for transfer, or do you think you could find somebody that would be willing to sell it at a fair open sale? That's a tricky problem to encounter. But what we have done with our specific de-assessions is that if it has been marked for de-assession, we have significant records that prove that it was approved for that de-assession in the past. It went out with this dispersal this time around. From Kelsey, can it be hard to find an auction house to take lower-end items? Yes, that is very true. But I will say never underestimate the power of any of your regional auction houses or auction companies. Sometimes what they'll be able to do is take an object and actually sell it in a pool of other objects that are a part of the same lot. So you're not always going to have a Sotheby's or Christie's or a Phillips or a Bonham's, but definitely look at all of those regional auction houses because they do take items that are of a lower value and hopefully you'll have some luck there. From Lacy, can you de-assession objects without clear title ownership? I guess go according to state cultural property laws. Yes, this is where you should seek legal counsel specifically. You need to speak with somebody about ownership laws and if you don't have clear title and ownership, that's something that your attorney or whoever your legal counsel should direct you to do and moving forward with because all of those are very unique situations. I wouldn't have that information for you. It's definitely something you should have a professional from a legal standpoint examine. From Cindy, replying to Kate, it's important to understand what de-assession has meant in your institution's history. Very, very, it's a very good point. At ours, a Natural History Museum, de-assession sometimes meant something was removed from the research collection and put on display and we still have those things. That's a very good point. From Stephanie and Phoenix, working at the Capitol, we often received transfers from other agencies. They always want us to add a footnote stating that if we want to de-assess those objects, we'll return them to the agency. The issue I'm running into now is that some of the agencies have been sunsetted, like weights and measures or old commissions. That is a tricky, tricky situation to be in. That's what we call a restriction as a part of a gift. If those agencies don't necessarily exist, that's something internally you should discuss with your staff and make sure that whatever your decision is, that it's fully on board. All of your staff is on board with it and that it sounds as ethically sound as it possibly can be. All your textbooks never mention offending donors. It's a tricky and very thin, tightrope to walk on and sometimes you do offend donors. That's life, that's the nature of having individuals that donate things to your museum. Not everyone is always going to love what you're doing. You can't please 100% of the people that you work with. Just do the best that you can, be as honest as you possibly can. I think that you'll find people are more accepting than they are otherwise. From Lauren, I'm currently deaccessioning our petroleum collection and removing multiple copies of the same volume. Yes, that can happen too where you have duplicates and that's a great rationale for a deaccession if it's duplicates and those duplicates don't serve purposes. From Elizabeth, did or how did this experience affect your accession policy? Our accession policy was only affected in the new development of a collecting plan which we had never had previously. The language that was added into our collections management policy that discussed the successions was that they would be in line with our current collection or collecting plan. So that's the most way in which it was affected. From Kelsey, is it ethical to get an auction house to appraise furniture before deaccessioning? I have a piece that I think is part real and part fake and don't want to deaccession it if I'm not 100% sure it's real. Well, in terms of appraisals and appraisers, appraisers are not authenticators of objects. They are ethically bound to not be authenticators of objects. So I would actually have somebody that is more a furniture expert take a look first at that object. I wouldn't have it valued and there is a delicate balance there. I'm not personally, I don't subscribe to knowing the value of an object before considering it for deaccession. But if you're wanting to know if it's an authentic piece, I would find someone who is an expert in that field and have them assess it separately. Some responses to Kelsey, possibly reach out to university to find an expert who would not be financially motivated, yes. It may be possible to find someone to evaluate it, conservator perhaps, yes. What if you identify a more suitable institution for groups of items but that institution may have questionable collections care policies slash physical storage? Jessica, that's a very, very good question. And again, it's for the benefit of the object and if it's not suitable, if the institution isn't suitable to take it, then I would assume that they're not suitable to be considered as part of the transfer. It's a hard position to be put in, but that would be the direction that I would personally go in. If you don't think they can adequately take care of it, then it's probably not the best destination for the object. Lacey, a conservator would probably be able to help you with, oh excuse me, this is going back to Kelsey's question about the furniture. From Pippa, hi, were valuations of the collection done prior to prior or during the collection assessment? No, they were not done prior or during the collection assessment. I know our insurance company would be very happy if we took the time to have valuations done on a lot of objects in our collection, but that's also something interesting, a whole other topic to discuss. If you're going to have valuations done for insurance purposes, it's probably always best to have sort of your top objects assessed and valued. If a museum was to have a value designated for every object in their collection, plus cover that under their insurance policy on a schedule, that would be a very, very expensive insurance policy to take out. So we did not have valuations done for prior to the assessment. And also, too, something to consider and something I also recommend everyone looking into is understanding the differences between values. You have retail replacement value, which is usually done more for insurance. You also have fair market value, which is usually done for the sale of an object. So understand what those different valuation terminologies mean, and that can also be helpful in terms of caring for your collection as well as deaccessioning it if necessary. From Brad, since you were deaccessioning art, was ownership of the copyright also included in the statistics for, excuse me, stats for each object? We fortunately didn't have any of that as an issue with the objects that we were deaccessioning. It is important to look at any copyright that might be included with an object. More contemporary and postmodern artists do have estates that juristic very specific copyrights of objects. So it is important to try and look into those things. For example, the Andy Warhol Foundation is very strict on copyright. So that is also something that would be very helpful with anyone assessing the situation before they do a deaccession. So I'm going to cut in here because we only have a few minutes left, and we have not that many questions left. Will you answer them in writing for me, please? And I'll post them with the recording. Okay. Sure, absolutely. And please fill out the evaluations. I want to thank ARCS again for helping us with this series, and we'll be working with them some more. We'll do some other legal issues. And this summer, of course, we're doing ivory in the fall. In November, we're going to do something on NAGPRA. So we are trying to get to the issues you'd like. Leslie, do you have any final words? I just want to thank you all for joining us today. Thank you, Susan, so much for all that you've done to make this possible. I will also, as she recommended, do everything... Sorry, my computer's acting up a little bit. Do everything to answer these questions you have coming in. And best of luck to all of you. If you do take on a deaccession, I understand what you're going through, and it's just best to take your time and be thoughtful in whatever you do. So thank you so much. Thank you, and I hope we'll see a lot of you next week when we do outdoor sculpture. So bye-bye.