“Overflowing storage and limited staffing and resources mean that many museum collections are in a state of stasis or even decay,” according to the Museums Association’s (MA) 2019 Empowering Collections report.
“Museums feel unable to undertake rigorous collections reviews, collect new material, transfer unwanted and duplicate items out of the collections, and provide adequate care for the items that they hold,” it warns.
One of the key recommendations of the report is for “more effective collections reviews and rationalisation”.Such work is often referred to in the sector as disposal, although it doesn’t (necessarily) mean throwing objects in the bin or selling them at auction. As the MA’s Code of Ethics makes clear, responsible disposal takes place as part of a museum’s long-term collections development policy and starts with a curatorial review.
Likewise, the Mendoza Review: An Independent Review of Museums in England published in 2017 recommended that disposal be a part of a sound collections management policy.
“Disposal is an opportunity for museums,” says Tehmina Goskar, the director and curator of the Curatorial Research Centre. “Rationalisation is the best way for a museum to get to know its collection and the potential it has. I am concerned that decision-makers are, increasingly, not well versed in collections and their potential.
“This means there is serious risk to collections held in public trust, particularly when financial and spatial pressures bite. Museums need to ask themselves: ‘Where would this object be most appreciated/used/loved? Is it here?’.”
Despite the benefits a programme of review and rationalisation can have for an institution, disposal remains a difficult subject for many organisations and staff.
“Disposal makes us question the delicate balancing point between legacy and sustainability; honouring the past and protecting our future; subjective ideas of significance and value; and representation of audiences,” says Jenny Durrant, a PhD researcher at the University of Leicester and a freelance collections specialist, who has undertaken research into how museums can become more transparent about the disposals process.
“Our sector is rooted in peer-support mechanisms and we haven’t reached the point where acceptance of disposal is the norm, so we’re in a self-fulfilling cycle of professional self-doubt.
"A significant aspect is the multi-generational nature of our sector. For many established professionals the idea of disposal contradicts all they have been taught and experienced, so it’s not surprising some people are cautious. We need to listen to our experienced colleagues while reassuring them of the changed ethics underpinning the practice.”
Goskar agrees: “The prominence of ‘perpetuity’ as an aspiration for museums has been a significant psychological and practical barrier to disposal.”
So, what are the key challenges for museums, and how might they be overcome?
Fear
“The sector should reduce the shame factor of disposal. It should be that organisations feel supported when they are doing this rather than the fear that they will do it wrong and be criticised.”
That comment, made by a respondent to the MA Collections 2030 research, which fed into the Empowering Collections report, sums up one of the biggest barriers surrounding disposal – fear.
Beverley Cook, the curator of social and working history collections at the Museum of London, says: “Disposal is often regarded as counter-intuitive to the key curatorial responsibility of acquisition and the preservation of material and visual culture.
“It is a ‘high risk’ activity – museums particularly struggle with the association of disposal with reputational and professional risk and the fear of unethical and illegal disposal of items with, for example uncertain provenance.”
Because of the negative connotations associated with the term disposal, the Museum of London chose to talk in terms of “rationalisation” and “refinement” when describing a 2014-17 project to review its social and working history collections. Items were “transferred” rather than “disposed”, Cook says.
“Many museum professionals struggle with lack of confidence and experience regarding the disposal of items,” she says. “There is often a fear to dispose of seemingly insignificant items that may, in the future, have their ‘moment of ‘significance’ or ‘relevance’.”
For Sharon Heal, the director of the MA, the key challenge is the psychology of the museum sector, which is built on the foundations of collecting and keeping objects. Getting rid of items trusted into the care of a museums seems (on the surface at least) to be at odds with that role.
“Fear is a barrier to disposal, but I think this is also a red herring – it is the sector’s inability to confront the unsustainable nature of continuing to collect and acquire,” Heal says.
“Museums keep on accumulating and the sector is built on expansion – of collections and space to house them – rather than dynamic collections management, which should include selection, dispersal and disposal. We think only ‘we’ can look after collections.”
Jenny Durrant agrees: “A ‘fear of missing out’ plays into this narrative, as museums are striving to become encyclopaedias of human identity and memory. We’re reluctant to let objects go in case they fit into one of these encyclopaedic gaps.
“So perhaps we can use our creativity and change our language. Can we refine through dispersal? Upcycle? Or reinvigorate the object’s life?”
Tehmina Goskar believes this attitude is starting to change. “In the past five years we have experienced a shift from the museum as a place to ‘preserve forever’ to a museum as a place for active conversations sometimes (but not always) inspired by collections.
“I have also observed a widening gap between people who entered the museum world because of their passion for objects and collections and those who see museums as places of activism not necessarily reliant on the presence of objects and collections.”
Reputational and professional risk is another challenge, with many museums fearful of unethical or illegal disposal. This is magnified by the number of high-profile cases where museums have sold items from their collections in order to raise funds.
However, the MA’s Code of Ethics is clear that financially motivated disposal risks damaging public confidence in museums and should only be undertaken “if it will significantly improve the long-term public benefit derived from the remaining collection”.
“A responsible, ethical and non-profit generating project that refines collections by removing low value, mass produced and duplicate items where provenance is clear, is not high risk,” Cook says.
Getting buy-in
Disposal isn’t often prioritised by organisations, says Goskar: “It doesn’t generate income or visitor numbers and, on its own, it doesn’t attract grant funding.” But when you consider the benefits of reviewing and rationalising a collection, the arguments to making disposal more of a priority become easier to make.
“As resilience gives way to how-do-we-keep-our-doors-open sustainability, museums will need to refocus themselves on what they exist for, for whom, and what kind of museum they want to be,” Goskar says. “One size does not fit all and while disposal was easy to ignore because it was seen as too difficult to start, it will soon become a pressing issue, particularly for those museums whose buildings are leaky and dilapidated.”Getting the commitment of the entire organisation, including trustees, is key for rationalisation projects to work.
“We were lucky at the Museum of London that our board of governors accepted our detailed reasons for disposal and were reassured when we explained this was a ‘refinement’ of the collections and removal of duplicate and generic items, rather than a drastic reduction,” Cook says. “All stakeholders were kept informed at all stages of the project and took a keen interest and responsibility in ensuring the project was of the highest ethical and legal standard.”
For some museums, the fear is that trustees or councillors will see disposals as a “get rich quick scheme” and start viewing the collection as a potential money-making opportunity.
The recommendations in the Code of Ethics around financially motivated sales should be referred to in such situations.
Resources
Another barrier is a lack of resources – of time, people and funds.
The Society for Museum Archaeology (SMA) has been involved in a project to assist with the selection of archaeological archives prior to accessioning and recently completed an Historic England funded project to provide guidance on the rationalisation of archaeology collections. Duncan Brown, the chairman of the SMA, says: “The case studies that supported the society’s guidance for rationalisation showed that it is an expensive process, especially if collections are not very well documented.
“The initial process to undertake a collections audit or review requires specialist expertise that is less and less common as museum curators are required to take on several collections and thus become more generalist.“Even when objects have been earmarked for disposal, following the process is time-consuming and perhaps ultimately disheartening.”
However, Cook points out that disposal can be undertaken by a small dedicated team that draws on the expertise of other colleagues such as registrars and conservators at specific times.
“It can be done on a small scale or over a long period of time but does need to be sustained by a committed curatorial team,” she adds.
In cases where museums do not have a curatorial team or people with specialist knowledge about the collection, there may be concerns that staff don’t have the expertise to dispose of items in their care. Cook says: “Such lack of confidence can be mitigated by the creation of a collections significance assessment framework to inform decision making.”
Durrant agrees that funding, time and resources are real problems, but adds that many museums treat disposal as a project.
“Acquisition is a routine curatorial process, so why not disposal? The two are so closely linked,” she says.
“Many museums still have staff who know the collection and have an awareness of institutional history and current mission, and this professional expertise is enough to make disposal decisions a routine practice.”
In most cases, a properly undertaken rationalisation project will generate a large amount of paperwork such as the creation of disposal procedures and risk-management statements. Cook recommends smaller organisations that don’t have the internal expertise to create such legal documents refer to the MA’s Disposals Toolkit.
If we don’t want it, who will?
A further barrier is the perception that no other organisation or museum will want items identified for disposal.
“Curators and museums who have begun rationalisation projects to focus the collection, make room for contemporary items and to raise its relevance value, have hit a brick wall with ethical disposal, particularly when wishing to transfer or sell an item,” says Goskar.
“When items have little intrinsic financial value (think monogrammed crockery for example) it can be difficult for museums to think of alternative uses.”
Cook says the Museum of London overcame this by taking a more creative and innovative approach to rationalisation. Duplicate hand tools that were not wanted by other museums were offered out beyond the sector to charities and craftspeople. This had the additional benefit of ensuring that tools donated to the museum were being put back into use by a new generation of skilled workers.