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Ethics Q&A: Competing museums 1
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Jan 2000
Both our own and a neighbouring registered museum have expressed an interest in acquiring a recently excavated hoard of coins that has been declared Treasure.
The neighbouring museum concedes that these coins, as a category of object, fall more within our collecting policy than theirs. Their argument is that the excavation site is within the administrative area of the authority that runs their museum.
Historically, however, it is part of our county, not theirs. The strictest application of the policies and agreements both museums drew up at registration would mean that the hoard came here. This is irrelevant as far as the neighbouring area's press is concerned. Their museum did little to discourage coverage which suggested that their local council should keep 'their' coins. Should we write in to complain?
A public squabble is virtually guaranteed to bring both museums into disrepute. The primary concern here should not be victory in a politicized fight but the interests of both your user communities. The people of the vicinity in which the coins were found clearly have an interest in them, which you should respect. How accessible will these coins be for them at your museum?
Your neighbours may also need to remember that local, popular understanding of where the geographical boundaries of communities lie will not necessarily correspond to where they lie for present-day administrative purposes.
As registered museums with agreed, complementary collecting policies, you really should be able to resolve matters of this nature in a civilized manner between yourselves.
If this is not possible, the dispute should be mediated, in the first instance, through your Area Museum Council, not by slugging it out in the press.
In the short term, you should ideally issue a joint public statement outlining either an amicable solution to this problem or at least your commitment to finding one.
In the longer term, you should both be refining collecting agreements more precisely and how you will resolve overlapping interests in future.
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