Educational collections

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Our museum is taking steps towards establishing an educational
collection. I am interested in how other museums work their
acquisitions policies. Do you ever 'downgrade' artifacts from the
regular collection into the educational collection? Is it feasible
legally to turn a donated artifact into an educational prop without
offending anyone? Because our museum is based on one man's
collection and that collection must have its 'integrity preserved'
as stated in our mandate, can we ever 'downgrade' artifacts from
that particular collection? Will the collection have any less
integrity whether we have 353 or 354 similar bottles, bells,
cameras, or study skins?

If you would be able to provide insight into how other museums deal
with this type of questions, please email or fax me. Thank you,

Krista Cooke
Curator
Sam Waller Museum
Box 185, The Pas, Manitoba R9A 1K4
Fax: 204-623-5506

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:22
               Distributed: Thursday, September 30, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-13-22-021
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