Attitudes to disposal from museum collections

Abstract

For a paper 1 comparing attitudes to disposals from museum collections, the starting-point would normally be an assessment of attitudes towards museum collecting itself. Examination of professional opinion and legal statements in governing legislation and elsewhere, however, reveals a surprising diversity of opinion. Further, there is at times a mis-match between the legislative perception of museums and their collections and actual practice: this can occur inconsistently within countries and there are certainly major variations between countries. From this it can be anticipated that a similar diversity of attitude exists towards disposal both between and within countries. Before coming to the issues relating to the acquisition and disposal of museum collections, therefore, a brief examination of the notion of cultural property is desirable. This is the material of museum collections but it has its own independent legislation. How then have attitudes towards cultural property developed and what is their current standing? For the purposes of this article the term cultural property, following normal international practice, is taken to include material from the arts, humanities and sciences. 2