DeaccessioningEric Fernberg

Collections Manager, Dress & InsigniaApril 12, 2011

Legislated Mandate

• “In accordance with Section 8 of the Museums Act, 1990, the CWM, an affiliate of the CMC, fulfills its mandate in part:

• By establishing, maintaining and developing for research and posterity a collection of objects of historical and cultural interest, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada.

• And under Section 9 (1) (a), and (c), it may:

• a) collect objects of historical or cultural interest and other museum material

• c) Sell, exchange, give away, destroy or otherwise dispose of objects of historical or cultural interest and other museum material in its collection and use any revenue there from to further its collection”

The First Challenge – Backlog

The warehouse storage facility at 221 Champagne Avenue had approximately 200 pallets on stacked metal shelving that required investigation.

Most of the material been donated in the 1970’s and 1980’s through veteran’s pension cheque inserts. In many cases, they were still in the original boxes (e.g. LCBO cartons) mailed in by the veterans and the CWM did not have the staff to process further than initial registration.

Initial looks revealed a large amount of uniforms and personal accoutrements. Though the variety was not known at the time, because initial identification was basic, it was suspected that there was a lot of repetition.

Suggestions were made to bring in volunteers to sort through material. Decided against.

Operations Hacs (Holistic Approach to a Complex Situation)

In September 1998, Collections Staff gathered to discuss how the backlog would be approached. A collective group consisting of the Collections Managers and the registrar was brought together to consider some of the key issues.

 

Order: Great care must be taken to keep the property and paperwork together.  

Storage: Keep it on a pallet, catalogue it, pack, and update the records. Those items which may be deaccessioned in the future were noted in the database for easy retrieval.

Timing: Without any planning, mistakes are going to occur. In order to set a realistic completion date it was necessary to do a test run.

Test Run 

The test run was undertaken to see how long it would take for one person to process a pallet, which was picked at random. The processing included: 

A complete printout of all objects in the pallet arranged by accession

 

Physical cross reference of the objects with the data print out.

 

Investigation of provenance in artifact files for each object.

 

Update cataloguing and locations in Ke Emu.

 

Initial identification of objects that might be deaccessioned.

 

The test run took almost a month to complete with the Cadillac treatment and it was estimated after the test that it would take one person 16 years to go through 200 pallets. Not Good.

The Reality

In order to process 200 pallets of material, we had to gather the resources we needed and compromise the goals from our initial approach. The process that we developed was to:

Increase the number of term staff from 1 to 4 for a period of 18 months.

Create a complete printout of the contents of the pallet and arrange by accession.

Verification of object to list and creation of provenance notes for Collections Manager.

Separate objects identified for possible deaccession and arrange for appropriate Collections Manager to review.

Create excel sheets for each pallet that noted objects retained for national collection and those for deaccession. Updating of cataloguing restricted to “tombstone” information and location changes.

More Reality

Problem: At first, the process required the Collections Managers to review each item initially identified for deaccession and consult the file for provenance. However, with the volume of proposed deaccessions being generated by four term staff, the secondary review stage began to fall behind drastically.

Solution: Empower the term staff to make the decision whether the object should be deaccessioned, but if they felt that the provenance or object was unique or special, to verify with the Collections Manager for final approval.

As the term staff became more and more familiar with the objects, and following the mandate, collections policy, and plan, they were able to exercise good judgment for selecting objects for deaccession.

Collections Managers monitored developments on a weekly basis and would interact with the term staff on questions of material culture, provenance, historical association, type of object, rarity, etc…, when required.

Result

The result of the backlog project was a physical inventory of the 200 pallets where objects were selected for deaccession and other retained for the national collection.

20,955 Objects Processed

16,926 Objects Selected for Deaccession

4,029 Objects Retained (19.23%)

Results Cont’d

Those that were selected for deaccession were separated into a holding area, until the Board of Trustees approved the resolution. Once approved, the objects could be disposed of.

 

Creation of an Excel list for each pallet indicating the object name, type, original owner, military unit, how acquired and value. These lists were submitted as addendum to Deaccession Resolutions presented to the Board of Trustees.

 

Objects that were retained were temporarily stored in boxes and rolling racks until other collections storage areas could be investigated.

 

A much better understanding of the types and provenance of objects that were stored in the backlog pallets. This experience would lead to further

deaccession initiatives.

New Plan and Policy

  Shortly after the termination of the backlog project, the museum mandate, collections plan, and collecting criteria were all revisited before moving to the new Canadian War Museum. This process began in December 2001 with a completion date for March 2002.

 

The new plan incorporated a vision statement by each collections manager as to the state of their collections, strengths, weaknesses, and how deficiencies were to be addressed over a five year period (to be renewed every 5 years).

 

Previous work with the backlog project and assessment of the remaining holdings allowed the Collections Managers to produce direction on future

deaccessions.

New Deaccessioning Initiatives 2002-2003

 The method of deaccessioning in the next round was completely different.

 

No term positions allocated to deaccession process. The work was contracted out.

 

Each Collections Manager was responsible to initiate collections refinement and oversee the project from beginning to end.

 

Initial step was to undertake physical inventories to assess numbers of objects that would require handling and investigation.

 

Scope of work was established and bidding process undertaken to find suitable candidates. Experience from the backlog projects incorporated to allow contractor freedom to exercise judgment by following the CWM Mandate, Collections Policy/Plan and collections Vision Statement.

Terms of Reference for Room 202

 It will be incumbent upon the contractor to, while using the guidance of the CWM collections criteria and Dress & Insignia Vision Statement, to go through the holdings of Room 202 and recommend duplicate/surplus objects for de-accession.

 

The contractor will pull the items recommended for deaccession and place them separately from the remainder, in a designated area in Phase 2.

 

Terms of Reference for Room 202

The contractor will keep a running Excel list of all items recommended for deaccession, by Accession Number, Object Name, Unit Designation, and Value. The contractor will provide a copy, on disk, to the Collections Manager, Dress & Insignia and Head, Collections Information.

 

The contractor will create a group in Ke Emu of all items recommended for deaccession, and ensure a provenance check of each recommended object.

If an object is determined to have any significant provenance, the contractor will contact the Collections Manager, Dress & Insignia for a final determination for retention in the National Collection or recommended for deaccession.

Result

  The first collections refinement initiative undertaken on Room 202 looked at 6973 objects over a period of 8 weeks.

 

2381 Objects (36%) were recommended for deaccession and relocated to a holding area in the warehouse.

 

580 objects that were retained for the national collection did not have any known location were “found” and the locations updated.

 

195 objects retained for the national collections did not have any record in the Ke Emu database. Records for these objects were created by the registrar.

 

 

Result

Ke Emu group created for deaccession recommendations to allow for global location and status changes. 

Excel document created to provide addendum to Board of Trustees resolution.

 

The winning bid for the refinement initiative was $7,650.00 and the average cost worked out to $1.09 per object. The original Class D Estimate, based on two contractors (E4 Level Salary) and computer work station rental was $11,440.00.

Disposal

  While awaiting approval from the Board of Trustees, all objects selected for deaccession were located in a temporary holding area.

 

Once the Board resolution was approved, the objects were released for disposal.

 

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) partners were provided with the opportunity to submit lists of objects and we accommodated as best we could.

 

Application for material was also received from other military museums (non MOU partners) and provided with objects based on their wish lists.

 

Disposal

Related stakeholders such as the military (Regular Force/ Militia) and cadet corps were accommodated after we had exhausted the opportunities with the military museum’s community.

 

Community groups and historical associations, re-enactor groups, etc…, were also the recipients of material for educational purposes.

 

When material was dispersed, the accession number was recorded and the new recipient/location recorded in the Ke Emu database.