Posts
Collections Stewardship
Double Duty: How a historic botanical garden reached a balance in managing its plant and art collections
All museums face many challenges maintaining and displaying their collections. But these challenges are exacerbated when collections of vastly different needs and care protocols share the …
Who are Western museums guarding African artefacts from?
Museums have, for many years, struggled with their colonial past. This article applauds the French government for deciding to return works of art stolen from Benin in the 19th century, and …
An ‘Endangered’ Artifact Allows a Small Museum to Better Tell Its Story
In the Summer of 2017, a supporter of the Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Museum notified us that the former First Lady’s original 1904 automobile operator’s permit was for sale on eBay. …
Wikipedia Is Digitally ‘Preserving’ Items Destroyed in the Brazil National Museum Fire
In an effort to preserve the memory of the 20 million objects lost in the September 2018 fire that decimated Brazil’s National Museum, Wikipedia has put out a call to the public to …
Collections 2030 – What Future for Museum Collections in the UK?
One of the five pillars of the Alliance’s strategic plan is global thinking. We know that US museums can become stronger by learning from their colleagues around the world. Case in point: …
On Cross Collecting, or Cross-Over Buying
Much like hedge funds diversify their portfolios, art collectors also maintain diverse collections to mitigate the risks the of the market. This is an old practice, but there has been a …
Museums and their Observers Debate the Field’s Deaccessioning Ethics
Recent sales of art by institutions like the Berkshire Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art have reignited the debate about when and how museums deaccession collections and to what purposes …
Reinforcement Crew: A Look Back
As the Reinforcement Crew enters its second decade of serving museums, we thought it was only appropriate to take a look back at how this endeavor began as well as highlight some of the …
Māori ancestors repatriated to New Zealand by the Peabody Museum
The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History worked with TePapa Tongarewa (Museum of New Zealand) on the voluntary repatriation of kōiwi and koimi tangata (Māori and Moriori skeletal …
Back by Popular Demand! Collections Conundrums: Current Issues and Resolutions
Watch this recorded webinar discussing the challenges collections professionals face when working with cultural objects and thei…
Can civic museums become catalysts for social change?
This article comments on the new report The Future of Civic Museums: A Think Piece, published by the English Civic Museums Network (ECMN), which calls on heritage organizations to support …
The Reinforcement Crew: Colleagues Helping Colleagues
Each year since 2007 museum collections professionals from around the nation have donated their time and expertise to help other institutions in need. This wonderful program improves the …