Question about museum curation and historical material loans.

by MisterJose

If it's kosher to the board rules, I had a question about historical items and museum curation:

Suppose you have a historical item in your ownership that you would be willing to have displayed in an interested museum. How does that usually work? What's the protocol? Are people with the items usually the ones making contact and saying, "Hey, museum of US presidents, I've got this signed folio of US senators from the 1800's and was wondering if you'd be interested..."

Also, if there is a high monetary value associated with the item, are museums in a position to pay for their display? Are deals struck for major items like, "I'll loan it for display it in your museum if you cover the insurance on it, plus 1% of your ticket sales."

PS - I'm not soliciting personal advice, I was just curious.

Eistean

Okay, you're asking a few questions here, so I'll take them one at a time.

  1. Offering items to a museum. This can either be through a loan, or a gift to the museum. These days many museums try not to take loans unless they're for a specific exhibit, as they can present clerical and legal issues 20 or 30 years down the road.

You would be the one to make contact with the museum you are interested in donating/loaning the object to. Send an email or call a curator or collections manager there, and they can walk you through their specific process.

  1. The question of money. If there is a high monetary value, many museums aren't in the position to pay for the object. Sad, but true.

That being said, if the museum agreed to take the object on a loan, they would generally speaking be covering the insurance and care of the object, which would be covered in the loan agreement. You definitely aren't getting royalties or a portion of ticket sales or anything though.

Another option would be donating the object. The appraised value of the artifact could then be deducted from your taxes ( In the US at least. Consult a tax-professional for more on that)

Searocksandtrees

Hiya, you might consider x-posting to /r/MuseumPros

jonwilliamsl

Typically loans are made for specific exhibits--but loans from private parties are hard. The museum putting on the exhibit covers all the costs associated with getting the object on display--shipping, insurance, conservation work if it's in bad condition.

Museums definitely can't do ticket sales, but insurance is standard.

Long-term loans are a friggin nightmare, because often the paperwork gets lost or there's some other sort of issue, and the museum is left holding the bag.

Donations are always appreciated (with the understanding that a very low percentage of any museum's holdings are ever on display at one time, and there can't be any guarantee that any object will be displayed).