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Ethics Q&A: Loans (commercial)
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January 2002
I am an art gallery curator. My senior managers want to set up a commercial picture loan scheme as part of a drive to cut the cost to our local authority of running the gallery.
The only investment the authority are prepared to make in starting and running the scheme is in a consultancy fee for someone with experience of picture hire schemes.
Previous loan schemes we have operated over the course of the 20th century have resulted in the loss, through theft or irreparable damage, of significant numbers of works of art from our collections.
What does the Museums Association's Code of Ethics say about the ethical considerations to be borne in mind when embarking on picture loan schemes?
The Code of Ethics (3.11) encourages museums and galleries to 'regularly review the means available to the museum to make collections more accessible'. The code also encourages museums to 'accept financial support from commercial organisations and other outside sources' (10.6).
Properly administered picture loan schemes are an excellent means of widening access and of raising much needed revenue. The new code encourages museums to be more commercially minded provided that their activities do not 'bring the museum into disrepute, reduce public access, subject the collections to unacceptable risk or jeopardise finances' (10.7).
But collections have to be made accessible to future generations as well as our own. Proposals for picture loan schemes must take into account the need to safeguard collections for future use as a publicly available resource.
Provision must be made to assess and meet security and conservation costs. It is wholly appropriate to administer a scheme in which the borrower meets at least some of these costs before a loan is approved. This may add to the total charge the gallery makes for the service but to offer it below real cost price is both commercially and ethically unsound.
It is important that the true cost of the scheme, including administering the loan, monitoring the condition of loaned works in situ and recalling the loan, is covered. Otherwise, rather than generating income, the amount of staff time and resources for core gallery or museum tasks will be reduced.
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