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Ethics Q&A: Access (collections) 2
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March 2000
We are a small town, volunteer run museum. Someone wants to borrow an item from our collection. He is an influential person in our local community and has been a significant benefactor and contributor to our work.
He would like to demonstrate how the item once worked to an antiquarian society he belongs to at a meeting to be held at his home. We shall be turning down his request but the two arguments he has put forward have given us pause for thought.
Firstly, he says that being granted this special favour is the reward he deserves for his contribution to conservation and research on the item. Secondly, he argues that the event has an educational purpose and that the object will be put to better use at his home on the evening in question than if it were to remain locked up in the museum.
Are we right to say no?
This individual is not entitled to special access to items in the collection or privileges with regard to their use that will not serve the interests of the public at large and may put the items at risk.
Benefactors, trustees, members, friends, paid and unpaid staff have a duty to safeguard and make the collections accessible for the benefit of all - not for their own benefit or the benefit of their friends, families or associates.
There are other ways besides allowing them to walk out of the building with items from the collection in which the invaluable work of those who contribute voluntarily to the work of the museum can and should be recognised and rewarded. Invitations to openings or private views are a useful way of doing this.
There is every reason to encourage discussion of the item's use on the museum premises with specially invited groups. So long as issues such as health and safety, insurance, conservation and security have been properly addressed, there may indeed even be a case, on occasion, for taking the item off site in controlled conditions for demonstration purposes.
You shouldn't, however, be setting a precedent for the removal of items from the premises at the request of anyone who believes that they should be treated with special favour.
The antiquarian society should be encouraged instead to discuss arrangements for special events with the museum through the same, formal channels as any other body, such as a school, would have to use. The society then enjoys precisely the same rights of access as any other legitimate user group.
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