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For now and ever1

Peter van Mensch

Collecting is part of collection management, which - together with research andcommunication - is one of the three core functions of a museum. The developmentof an integrated view on collection management has led to a new approach tocollecting as an instrument of collection development.

This text presents an overview of the different aspects of collecting. It should beseen as a selection of building stones rather than as a finished structure. Itprovides no guidelines for framing collecting policies, but is meant primarily tofacilitate developing a set of instruments to describe and analyse the actualpractice of collecting.

1 Musealisation

Collecting may be defined as the decision to remove certain objects from theonward flow of time and to bestow upon them a permanent existence, a processalso called 'musealisation'. More accurately phrased, collecting - as a form ofmusealisation - is bringing together objects of different provenances that had notpreviously been found together in the same constellation. A collection creates anidea of the past (and the present) in order to make it a possible entity fordiscussion in the present. It is also a gift to the generations to come, and in thisrespect we may speak of 'transfer of culture' to contemporary publics as well as to

future societies.

Culture criticism and amazement

Much has been said and written on the psychology and sociology of collecting. It isimpossible to give an unequivocal psychological, socio-psychological orsociological paradigm. As a social phenomenon collecting is probably too complexto understand in all its diversity. Paul Kuypers, director of De Balie, cultural centre,Amsterdam, considers the confrontation with - or rather the daydreaming into -another world as a need for 'therapeutic tranquility in a strongly individualisedsociety'. The interest in history and collecting as such is actually a kind of culturecriticism. For Adriaan van der Staay, director Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau,Rijswijk, it is the logical answer to the supremacy of our mid-century modernism.Others go one step further and look upon collecting as a protest against theinstability of the world, against its transitoriness, against death and nothingness.On the other hand, collecting implies being fascinated by the unknown andamazed at its diversity, as well as attempting to get a grip on this unknown and

1 The text of this publication is the translated adaptation of the report on aseries of discussions organised by the Nederlandse Museumvereniging (NetherlandsMuseums Association) in August and September 1992. This may explain why,besides the historical survey of the national debate on collecting in the Netherlands,

the report itself is also written from a predominantly Dutch perspective, with theoccasional example taken from situations in the Netherlands.


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diverse quantity. Thus collecting is also a form of recording and classifyingknowledge.

A new phenomenon is collecting as a form of investment. This concerns almostexclusively the fine arts, and only to a lesser extent the applied arts. Although noidea of investing underlies the developing of a museum collection as such, thiscannot escape its influence. Museum exhibitions and catalogues affect the marketvalue of art, and (former) museum staff may act as investment consultants. At thesame time it is becoming increasingly difficult for museums to buy works of art,while the pressure from outside to sell parts of the collection is mounting.

Whatever its motivation and legitimation, collecting is no longer the domain of theinitiated, the happy few; society as a whole is getting more and more involved inthe preservation of cultural heritage. The sharply increased number of museumvisits has been coupled with an equally sharp increase in active and passiveparticipation in preservation activities as such. Hoarders of ephemera, oncedismissed as eccentrics, are now applauded as invaluable repositories of local

heritage (David Lowenthal). Like many of their fellow Europeans, the Dutch aredisplaying an unprecedented urge to collect: anything is collectible, the sky seemsthe limit.

Institutionalisation

Private collecting has a marked tendency to institutionalise itself. The first publicmuseum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, originated from a private collection in1677 and in the ensuing centuries many thousand museums all over the worldwere directly or indirectly based on collections brought together by privatecollectors. Even today, establishing one's own museum is the secret dream ofmany a collector, no matter what the collection, be it modern art or cigarette

lighters.

The process of institutionalising goes hand in hand with professionalisation.Rational grounds are prevailing over intuitive and spontaneous considerations toexplicate legitimacy. This involves a shift in attention from the display of an objectwith its intrinsic qualities, via research into diversity and development, to thedocumentation of themes. These perspectives on collecting will differ according totime and place, but especially according to the type of museum. The differencesconcern primarily the function of the collection. Collecting is no aim in itself, andcreating an image of the present or the past isn't either. It is not even a means,but above all a result of its orientation on one (or more) of three basic

legitimations: its archival function (also called documentary function), its researchfunction, and its public function (also called museum function).

Legitimation

These orientations may be supplementary, but they can also be conflicting. Nomuseum would ever legitimise its collecting policy exclusively by its archivalfunction. In actual practice either the public function or a combination of thearchival and the research function are the driving force of the collecting policy. Formost, if not all, art museums the storage room is a necessary evil. Their collectingpremise is `display quality'. At the other end of the scale collections of stale air (ascollected by the American national agency for oceanic and atmospheric research)

have a very important scientific archival value. Where in the latter instance thereis no question of public function (unless the air is contained in an object of special

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historical or aesthetical value), the premise of the former need not be inconsistentwith the archival function.

The collection policy of technical museums in the Netherlands is strongly focusedon the archival function, while an inquiry among Dutch cultural history museums in1988 showed that these museums grosso modo have strongly public-orientedcollecting policies. The themes of the presentations influence their collectingpolicies. In this respect natural history museums show a marked differencebetween the large national and the small local museums, with the medium-sizedregional museums standing midway. The national and regional museums have adirect link between (part of the) collection and research. But all natural historymuseums, whatever their size, regularly purchase purpose-stuffed animals forthematic exhibitions. As deaccessioning after the exhibitions have ended is seenas destruction of capital, the eventual results are lopsided collections.

Research collections

Few museums are able to exhibit their whole collections permanently. An Englishsurvey has shown that on average some 20% of the collection is on display,varying from 1% in natural history museums to 40% in transport museums. Sincethe introduction of the bipartite museum model in the middle of the nineteenthcentury, museums have learned to live with the idea of storage rooms. At thattime a clear distinction was made between presentation and storage, whichautomatically gave rise to the antithesis public/user collection andresearch/archival collection. Public collections arise from exhibitions, and may beof a temporary nature. Research collections arise from research or from pre-research initiatives. These collections retain their value even after the relevantresearch has been concluded.

There can be quite a difference in the relation between museum research andacademic research, depending on the kind of museum involved. A symposium on`Het voorwerp als historische bron' (The object as a historical source) on 26 May1982 discussed the question as to what extent museums of history shoulddeliberately focus on researchers as a target group. It was found that the threadlinking the world of academic research and the museum ambience was rathertenuous. Historians have, also because of their university training, always beenmore archive-directed than museum-directed. Within the anthropological disciplinethe rise of non-western sociology has created museum anthropologists andinstitutional anthropologists, each dealing with different aspects of non-westernsocieties. Due to the renewed interest in material culture a gradual reunion of the

two now seems to materialise. In (prehistoric and classical) archaeologicalresearch there is hardly any difference between museum archaeologists andinstitutional archaeologists. In biology the typical museum research specialism,taxonomy, has its own distinctive place. After a period of relative neglect thisspecialism now appears to be up for revaluation. Just as archaeology,palaeontology is, of course, pre-eminently collection-oriented.

For art museums, especially museums of contemporary art, there is an additionalresponsibility, which is not completely covered by the research and publicfunctions: the responsibility for art and the artist. Public collections are, as it were,the yardsticks for the fine arts. In the same way many museums of applied art allover the world owe their existence to the express wish to improve the quality of

industrial mass products.

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Networks

For technical and industrial heritage, museums are not the only bodies responsiblefor its management and care. Some companies have their own historicalcollections. In such cases, however, there is no guarantee of continuity. To whatextent do companies have an `obligation to preserve'? Should museums feelresponsible for the care and possible housing of corporate collections? There is nosingle answer to this question. Some museums are able to make arrangementswith companies on objects that are still being used. Such `preservation plans'have, for instance, already been made by the Koninklijk Nederlands Leger- enWapenmuseum (the Royal Dutch Army and Arms Museum) and the Ministry ofDefense, and by the Nederlands Spoorwegmuseum (the Dutch Railway Museum)and the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Netherlands Railways). The ideal situationwould be for museums to develop a framework for collecting, based on a thoroughstudy of the developments in a certain area and an inventory of its characteristicobjects. But even so, museums will not be able to cover the whole field. Thus animportant task is reserved for the private collector.

An important group of non-museum collections is formed by the collections ofuniversities. A nationwide survey in the Netherlands has revealed as many as 130university collections. Some of these can be seen as object archives (e.g. in-struments), whose importance lies predominantly in the fields of cultural history orthe history of science. They did not come into being as collections, but resultedfrom `natural accumulation'. The greater part of university collections, however,are the result of deliberate collecting for teaching or research purposes, and adistinction can be made between active and passive collections. In the case ofpassive collections research has been concluded. They may be of current interestas reference collections, but lead a dormant existence. Active collections are stillbeing researched or actively used for teaching purposes.

Geological, palaeontological, and archaeological collections are a case apart. Manycountries have museum collections as well as university collections. Relationsbetween museums and university research institutes are problematical.Researchers regard everything as archival material and refuse to select. At thesame time they do not consider themselves long-time custodians of thecollections. Museums have to bear the brunt of this point of view: they do considerthemselves long-term custodians, but are faced with lack of space and staff.

The greatest problem with university collections is their lack of continuity andadequate infrastructure. Qua organisation the universities are not equipped for

collection management while merging and/or discontinuing of departments andsections are not conducive to collecting policies either. Collections break adrift andif no solutions are found there is every chance that important scholarly or scientificmaterial is lost.

There is a striking diversity in non-museum institutions that collect fine arts, forinstance in companies and art lending libraries or centres. At the moment thereare probably just as many companies as museums with collections ofcontemporary art. Initially corporate collections were restricted to portraits andpictures of the company premises, but this field was widened after World War II.

Thus corporate collections became in fact the continuation of what was formerlydone by collecting executives. The development of corporate collections in the

Netherlands was documented by two exhibitions: `Kunst in bedrijfsleven (Art inBusiness)' in 1950 and `Kunstzaken (Art Matters)' in 1988. A few collections have

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managed to evolve into `real' museums. Their fortunes are, however, tightly linkedto the economic position of their companies, and, like university collections, thereis always the danger of these collections breaking adrift.

Division and cohesion

Documenting contemporary `ensembles' - such as the machines, equipment, andarchives, etc. of companies and factories - entails special problems. There is only avague borderline between objects (like equipment and products) on the one hand,and two-dimensional documentation (like drawings, invoices, correspondence) onthe other. Objects generally devolve upon museums, company archives upon localor provincial archives, but what is the fate of less well-defined categories such asfloor plans and blueprints? No agreement has been reached about an adequatemethodology in this respect. But even if clear and definite arrangements havebeen made as to shared responsibility by museum and archival institution,problems may arise. Archives apply criteria for selection and classification that aredifferent from those of museums, and this may in due course result in the two

falling out of step, so that the archival institutions can no longer respond toquestions from the museums. On the other hand the former may have problemswith the way in which museums deal with archival material.

Private collectors.

Among the various collecting bodies the private collectors are a group apart. Manymuseums have their origins in private collections. From the museum point of viewprivate collectors add a welcome complement to museum tasks, notably in theirexploration of new collecting fields. Because of their independence, their obstinacyand sometimes because of their financial means, private individuals can assemblecollections that are as yet outside the sphere of interest of the established

museums. In this connection museum curators sometimes regard collaborationwith private collectors as `delegating risks'. For recent developments the privatesector can - and usually is expected to - act as a sieve.

The art of destroying

Deliberate collecting is also deliberate non-collecting. In a cynical vein one mightsay that collectors carefully select the objects that will disappear in time, animplication of collecting that has been described as `the art of destroying'. In thewidest perspective, research into `the negative of the collection' is just asinteresting as research into the contents of what has been actually collected.

What, for instance, is the reason why local history museums in the Netherlandshave so far paid little or no attention to women's history and the social history ofall sorts of ethnic minority groups? Why is it that modern art museums pay hardlyany attention to the contemporary art of non-western societies in their collectingpolicies?

The process of musealisation itself, however, also entails a form of destruction:destroying information. This destruction involves all three levels of information:physical characteristics, significance and context. Loss of physical information canbe observed in its most extreme form in natural history museums. Herbaria(botanical museums) often collect only parts of plants (it would be difficult tocollect a tree in toto). Zoological museums do collect whole animals, but as a rule

only a limited part is preserved (skin, skeleton).

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By definition collecting means alienating the object from its original contexts. Talking about industrial archaeology the social historian Harry van denEerenbeemt made a plea for keeping historic objects in their original setting (insitu): if the historic object is to retain its full potential for the historian, then itshould be visited in its own environment, and not be broken away from its roots.As a historian Van den Eerenbeemt is afraid for loss of information due to theinterpretation of the museum curator.

Collecting to increase knowledge

When an object is removed from its original context and put in a new - i.e. amuseum - context, the result is not only loss of information. Bringing objectstogether in a collection can also increase insight into developments of past andpresent, provided the collection has an inner coherence that lends it greater valuethan is provided by the sum of its constituent parts. The individual objects derive(part of) their meaning from being confronted with other objects and the thematicconcept of the composition and organisation of the collection. In this connection

the Czech museologist Zbynek Stransky uses the word `thesaurization'.

The most important instrument for ongoing development of collections has alwaysbeen collecting itself. Memoranda, reports, manuals, etc., appearing in the courseof the 1970s and 1980s, stressed the significance of collecting plans, aimed atfilling gaps on the one hand, and updating by observing recent developments onthe other. In this connection the word `quality' suddenly emerged in Dutchmemoranda at the end of the 1980s. Promoting the inner coherence and thedistinctive profile of the collection, based on a sharply delineated fundamentalprinciple, was considered more emphatically than before to be the core of acollecting policy. But the growth of the collection - in other words continuedcollecting - may have a negative effect on the quality and the accessibility of the

collection. Of all the instruments of collection management, deaccessioning - in thesense of `negative collecting' - was strongly emphasised. To optimalise collectionsa method of selecting was proposed that divided objects into different categories.Such a selection could be a guideline for `weeding'. Especially for art museums theterm ùpgrading' is used in this respect. Ùpgrading' by `weeding' is, however, notunchallenged.

In some leading Dutch publications of the early twentieth century the weedingoption was still happily advocated, but doubt was rearing its head during ameeting of the Nederlandse Museumvereniging in 1952. `What is your opinion onmuseums deaccessioning objects that had previously been admitted to the

collection but do no longer fit into the present museum programme? Does removalof such objects not imply that the hands of future museum directors are alreadytied in advance?' was the question put to the speakers on that occasion. Besidesarguments in favour, the recent discussion on deaccessioning also provided strongarguments against. It would seem that in the course of the century especiallythose against have underpinned their arguments.

Deaccessioning

There may be several reasons to contemplate deaccessioning. A practical reason iscreating space in the storage rooms and providing relief for registration andconservation. This is a matter of quantitatively decreasing the collection. However,

deaccessioning is not only a quantitative concept. Selecting objects to bedeaccessioned requires prior valuation. This has to be done in an àbsolute' sense

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(market value) as well as in a relative sense (their value in relation to themuseum's definition of purpose). In the case of valuation in a relative sense,deaccessioning can be an instrument of a dynamic collecting policy, where parts ofthe collection are exchanged for objects of a higher value. The high market valueof some objects may put pressure on a careful consideration of their relative value.In this connection the phrase `commercial deaccessioning' is used.

There may be various reasons to refuse deaccessioning, one of them being thedelicate relations with potential donors. One may wonder to what extent adeaccessioning policy may diminish their willingness to donate. In the case ofobjects of modern art there is also the matter of betraying the trust of the artists.Often museums buy directly and at a lower price from the artists because ofpersonal relations. A different situation arises when a collection has been broughttogether on the basis of mutual agreements between museums. It should not bepossible for one of the parties to make a unilateral decision to change the policy,particularly if there has been an exchange of collections.

Historicity

One of the most important arguments against deaccessioning is respect for thehistory of the collection: the historicity of the collection is injured more bydeaccessioning than by accessioning. The composition of collections reflects adevelopment of knowledge. Old collections are, in fact, an accumulation of`fossilised world views', each one covering the next, like matruskas, the woodenRussian dolls.

This holds for all categories of museums, not least for art museums. Directors ofmuseums of contemporary art do not attempt to document movements in arthistory systematically and encyclopaedically. On the whole they do not adhere to

the `principle of representativeness', but decide either on specific artists or onindividual works. Initially it is a matter of personal choice: the direct contactbetween the director or curator with the artists plays a significant role. On theother hand there is also the responsibility for the collection that is already there,which implies that nuclei in the collection must be developed and expanded. Thisprocedure observes the respect for the idiosyncratic character of the collection,while also promoting its being updated.

For scientific collections it is also important to research the extend of variation of aparticular species, so that series of specimens are needed. Strictly speaking noduplicates exist in scientific natural history collections that can be deaccessioned.

Rationalisation

The tension between freedom and bondage is felt strongest in art museums. JanVaessen, the director of the Nederlands Openlucht Museum (Netherlands Open AirMuseum), advocated the creative input of the director. He is convinced that acollection based on an explicit vision rises above a collection with a random,individual origin. Professional museological literature, on the other hand,advocates the development of rational criteria to raise a collection above theindividual origin. The example of a rationalised collecting policy quoted most oftenis the SAMDOK project in Sweden. This collaboration of Swedish museums wasstarted in 1977 to record contemporary Swedish society methodically and

systematically by means of collections and documentation. Its starting-point is todistinguish a number of sectors in society and to divide these sectors into areas for

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special study. A number of aspects from each of these areas is scrupulouslydocumented by some of the collaborating museums. Although SAMDOK is oftenquoted, the Swedish example has not (yet) been followed by any other country.

Growing and outgrowing

Collecting leads ipso facto to a growing collection. Contrary to what has happenedin the library world, little research into the nature of collection growth has beendone in museums. Hardly any attention was paid to growth in the museum fieldanyway, until some five years ago: a phenomenon seems to qualify only forattention from the moment it is considered a problem. Obviously, until the middleof the 1980s the museum world did not feel - or refused to feel - growth to be aproblem. After a number of surveys, notably the investigation into cultural historycollections (by an external agency, Intomart Qualitatief), the NederlandseMuseumvereniging devoted its springtime meeting in 1988 to the issue of qualityand quantity. The conclusion drawn at the end of the day was that growth hadreached its limits and that solutions had to be found for better control of

collections. There was no consensus as to how this should be achieved.

The Intomart Qualitatief survey confirmed the data resulting from the enquiry intothe state of museums in the provinces of South Holland and Limburg by HanMeeter, now a lecturer at the Reinwardt Academie. The average growth ofcollections is 1-10% per annum. American surveys show similar results, albeit thatthe percentages per museum category are widely divergent. Meeter also observedthat an other factor influencing the growth rate was the museum's `stage of life':young museums with a relatively small collection can have a growth rate of 30% ormore. As museums become larger, the percentage appears to become stable. Inabsolute figures it means that the larger the museum, the more objects it acquires.

Overdevelopment

During the above-mentioned meeting of the Nederlandse Museumvereniging theconcept of `development and overdevelopment' was elaborated. On the whole onemay assume that the practical value of a collection increases along with its growth(the `development situation'). At a given moment a point will be reached that - allresources remaining the same - marks the limit of its potential (the critical mass).Continued growth will make the collection unmanageable and will not increase itspractical value; on the contrary, this may even decrease (the `overdevelopmentsituation'). The limiting factors are the size of the storage rooms, passive andactive conservation possibilities, and adequate registration and documentation

facilities.

In theory it is possible to determine an optimum situation for each collection. Thesubjective perception of having reached the critical point will be different for eachindividual. In many cases the average museum staff have learned to live with thesituation as it is. They have a higher level of tolerance than the interested outsider,whose amazement may turn into lack of understanding or anger at a situation thatthey consider unacceptable. Others may be attracted by a chaotic collection,which to them holds something romantic and mysterious, and for several artiststhis was a source of inspiration. For museum professionals such collections mayalso have a romantic appeal: discoveries may be made. In this connection the term`museum archaeology' has recently emerged in museum circles to indicate the

search for lost items of the collection.

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The cost of collecting

The `critical mass' problem is principally a financial problem. In the second half ofthe 1980s the influence of the rapidly rising art prices on the collecting policies ofmuseums received quite a lot of media attention. There was, however, littleunderstanding of the true acquisition costs, or the long-term financialconsequences of acquisitions. In 1988 the British Office of Arts & Librariescommissioned an enquiry into the costs involved in the developing and managingof museum collections. The results were laid down in a report published in 1989,The Cost of Collecting. Besides mapping the different kinds of costs it tried to gainsome information as to the height of these costs and the respective differencesrelated to the kind of collections and the type of museums.

The research group itemised the following costs:

A Initial cost of acquisition [`investment']1. purchase [price of the object, auction fees, appraisal, transport, etc.]2. curatorial [research, documentation, etc.]

3. documentation [accessioning, filling in inventory cards, etc.]4. conservation5. storage [creating suitable storage facilities]

B Operational costs for management and care1. curatorial functions for collections management [research, publications, etc.]2. documentation [updating information]3. stock-taking4. research5. conservation6. security7. building maintenance and repair overload8. administrative overload

The sum total of all costs connected with collecting and managing a collection ison average two-third of the museum's whole budget. Comparison with recentAmerican research gave an almost similar specification of costs. The Americancalculations showed that objects in storage cost on average $ 120 per annum,against $ 3,000 for objects on display. Of course these are just average figures.Nevertheless, this way of costing clearly shows that external funding which onlycovers the actual purchase price of an object, does by no means cover the truecosts involved in the acquisition.

2 Forms of preservation

Coping with the conflicting interests (archival, research and public) does not onlydetermine the choice of objects to be collected and the way in which the collectionis organised, but also the way in which information is recorded. In general the focalpoint is `the authentic object', but in actual practice a happy medium must besought between the wishes ensuing from the three functions mentioned above,and conservation feasibilities. In natural history museums conservation for objectsin the research collection differs from those in the public collection. As a resultboth collections are increasingly becoming less interchangeable, so that it is oftennecessary to start collecting anew for exhibition purposes.

Pars pro toto

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In a number of cases preservation of the original object is simply impossible. Largeand complex objects, like shops, derricks, refineries, etc., are difficult to preservein toto. They require alternative ways of being documented.

The choice of preserving the whole object or only part of it depends on (1) practicalconsiderations, (2) the scholarly or scientific (sub)discipline for which the collectionis built, and (3) the development of research within this discipline.

Conservation problems

A different problem appears with materials which, for technical reasons, can onlybe preserved with the greatest possible effort, or not at all. This is definitely thecase with audiovisual and sound archives. The situation concerning nitrate film isextremely serious, but already problems have started with the early acetate filmas well. The storage life of video and sound tapes appears to be only very limited.Another problem is formed by the rapid succession of recording and playbackequipment. If the original systems have been superseded by new ones, it may

prove impossible to retrieve the data from some of the carriers. In this connectionit was observed during the Wijenburg debates that we simply have to accept thefact that some materials are so perishable and some equipment so sophisticated,that preserving them is impossible. Therefore the actual information contained incertain objects will have to be preserved and made accessible in other ways thanby preserving the object itself.

But even if there is no acute conservation problem qua material, one may wonderif it is realistic to preserve certain advanced equipment. Increasingly curators andrestorers of technical collections have to accept that it is impossible to understandhow a device or a machine works, while in the course of time such expertise will nolonger be found outside the museum walls either.

Another problem is the inherent limits of the object as data carrier, and this callsfor other solutions. From time to time the Department of Dutch History of theAmsterdam Rijksmuseum focuses attention on a certain aspect of society bycommissioning a series of photographs. Thus particular aspects are documentedthat are hardly ever recorded in collections.

Preservation of working exhibits

An interesting issue in technical museums is the matter of `preserving workingexhibits'. What is the role of the actual function of the object? Should a clock run or

should it be stopped? The answer to this question has definite implications for thecollecting policy. Preservation of working objects, also called operative objects, isnot only a decision made in connection with the public function of the museum,but is also considered a fundamental part of conservation (`It 's better to wear outthan to rust out'). Moreover, working exhibits preserve the knowledge about howthe objects were used, while in some cases their products even bring in a littlemoney. On the other hand, using them actually implies using them up. That is whysome museums have dual collections: a display collection, that can be used up anda reserve collection to be preserved. Another alternative is the use of copies ormodels to explain how these objects work.

Repairs will be necessary from time to time to keep an object operative, and this

requires spare parts. But after a period of time spare parts will no longer be

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available. They will then have to be taken from other items (`cannibalisation'). Anoption would be to acquire two or more identical objects at the same time.

3 Forms of collecting

There are different ways of specifying the various forms of collecting and eachform has something to contribute to the development of the collection. Adistinction can be made between internal versus external, retrospective versuscontemporary, and active versus passive collecting.

Internal and external collecting

External collecting (also called direct collecting) is the collecting method describedat the beginning of chapter two, when an object is musealised straight from itsoriginal context. But many objects enter a museum collection indirectly. This route,called internal collecting (or indirect collecting), runs via private collectors, trading,

and sometimes via other museums.

Although the early nineteenth-century collecting trips by museum directorReinwardt yielded considerable natural history (and ethnology) collections, theDutch museums of natural history and ethnology remained largely dependent onthe private and professional collectors not connected to any museum, till late intothe twentieth century. It was unusual for a museum curator to go on a field triphimself. In Dutch ethnological museums the `study-collecting-trip' phenomenononly started developing in 1965. This caused a complete change of emphasis incollecting policies. It allowed for a more differentiated representation ofcontemporary daily life in non-western societies.

For Museums of Old Masters private collectors and the art market also play animportant role. This applies to museums of contemporary art as well, in the sensethat while they do have the chance of collecting externally, i.e. from the artiststhemselves, their choices are greatly influenced by the interplay of collectors andthe art market. The way in which this influence is established is the subject of alarge number of - especially journalistic - publications.

Retrospective and contemporary collecting.

Apart from natural history museums - which by definition have contemporarycollecting where living nature is concerned - collecting policies of museums have

always had a strongly retrospective orientation. With regard to contemporarymatters it has always been considered imperative to allow for a `period ofincubation', in order to be able to select more carefully, supported by the `wisdomof hindsight'. This is the reason why the national museums in the Netherlands werevery restrained in purchasing contemporary art at the beginning of the twentiethcentury. The consensus was that a well-considered opinion was only possible someten years after the artist had died, or some twenty-five years after the art objecthad been made. For public records and monument protection a (legal) period offifty years has been customary for ages. The present process of `shrinking thepresent' has put pressure on this period; the bill for a new Public Records Act in theNetherlands has shortened this period to twenty years.

The idea of observing a period of critical reflection before purchasingcontemporary art has long since been superseded. The financial market structure

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has made a well-considered, mature opinion an almost prohibitive luxury. Theshrinking of the present, caused by the acceleration of the ageing process, alsohas its effects on other cultural history museums, especially museums of historyand of technology. The life cycle of many categories of objects is so brief, thatretrospective collecting is wellnigh impossible. Some museums of technology, forinstance, already have existing claims on equipment that is still fully used. In othersectors of cultural heritage preservation (archives, books) there are systems of avoluntary copyright library or a dpot lgal. Suggestions have been made todemand the producing institutions (industry) to share the `burden of preservation'.

In this respect private collectors also play an important part. In the first place theyare more inclined to take risks. For many categories of objects they constitute thefirst phase of musealisation. It is the world of collectors (and traders) which thenundertakes the process of critical evaluation that eventually may lead toaccessioning the object into museum collections.

The selection problems involved in documenting one's own culture and time also

lead to a growing consciousness with respect to retrospective collecting. One suchaspect is the relation between the value of data carried by the object, and thestage of its life cycle. In other words, does documenting the object implydocumenting its design, its production or its consumption (reception); is the objectdocumented in the fully developed stage of its application potential or as an objectthat is physically and functionally obsolete; is the object documented as originallyused or in a later stage of recycling?

Contemporary collecting gives an extra dimension to the deaccessioning debate.The (little) weight attached to the `test of time' as a selection criterion is inverselyproportional to the criticism of future generations. How much room is available toundo mistakes? Or should `mistakes' rather be respected as a sign of the times?

In American museums a partial solution to this problem has been sought bydistinguishing between 'acquisition' and `accession'. Acquisition is what is(passively or actively) acquired. This is a form of first selection, followed by asecond selection process, when a number of criteria are applied to see whether ornot the object should be officially and definitively allowed to become part of thecollection (accessioned). To a certain extent this is comparable to the forms oftemporary collecting found in Dutch museums. Some ethnological museumscollect specifically for exhibitions by means of fieldwork. Only a small part of thematerial is eventually accessioned into the actual museum collection. The rest isrelegated to the education department as `use collection' (`commodity

collection'), or in some cases to the museum shop, to be sold. Museums ofcontemporary art often organise exhibitions based on loans from the artiststhemselves or sometimes from the commercial art galleries, but only a limitednumber of the objects involved find their way to the permanent collection.

Active and passive collecting

Active collecting means that the initiative is taken by the museum; when theinitiative to transfer objects to the care of the museum is taken by others, it iscalled passive collecting. Active collecting (like purchasing, fieldwork, loans, orcommissions) provides better opportunities to steer collection development thanpassive collecting (donations, bequests), but active collecting is expensive in terms

of money, expertise and time. An enquiry into the state of museums in theprovince of Limburg showed that on average 40% of the collection had been

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actively acquired. There appeared to be a marked difference between large andsmall museums: an active policy proved to be far more difficult for the small,private museums than for the large, mostly local government, museums. Theformer had acquired 35% of their collections by purchases, loans, fieldwork, andcommissions, as against 75% of the latter.

Actually, the word `passive' is to a certain extent misleading. A museum canstimulate donations and bequests in many ways. Important donations are oftenthe result of good relations with Friends or other supporters. For the major artmuseums an active purchasing policy has proved a stimulus for donors.

Purchasing

Purchasing enables a museum to have an active collecting policy. However,developments in the art market make this increasingly difficult for art museums.Museums have become heavily dependent on serendipity, but even so their ownfinancial means prove to be insufficient. The suggestion made by one of the

speakers at the 1991 autumn meeting of the Nederlandse Museumvereniging, thata few museums might jointly purchase an expensive object, was hardly considereda feasible alternative by the participants. What does happen is increasing priorconsultation, to prevent Dutch museums from bidding against each other atauctions.

Inadequate means have led to all kind of initiatives, especially to the formation offunds. Some museums receive special funding from Friends organisations,museum shops, etc. Others try to set up a purchasing fund by selling parts of theircollections. In the private sector there are several funds that support museums intheir collection development. In the Netherlands, central government has alsoestablished a foundation for this purpose, besides a purchasing grant scheme for

contemporary art.

Donation and bequest

Art museums, especially in their initial stage, have always been heavily dependenton the initiative and generosity of private benefactors. Not only individual works ofart, but whole collections have been donated or bequeathed to existing museumsor have become the original core of newly founded museums. In the Netherlands,central government has always played a modest role. During a symposiumorganised by the Mauritshuis, The Hague, in 1990, the government was blamed forits continuing unwillingness to create a favourable tax environment promoting

private collection development and donations to museums. An arrangement suchas the 'acceptance en lieu', which permits the donating of works of art instead ofpaying death duty, does not exist in the Netherlands.

In other museum sectors such problems do not play an equally prominent role, butprivate donors are still very important. The increased value of art and antiques hasled to a decrease in the number of donations, especially on a local level. The factmentioned above, that 65% of the collections of small museums in the province ofLimburg consist of donations and bequests, reveals the vulnerable situation of thismuseum category. Moreover, there is a trend among the youngest generation ofnon-art collectors nt to donate their collections, but to establish their ownmuseums.

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However, there are often drawbacks attached to donations and bequests. In thepast, objects have repeatedly been accepted that have not struck root in thecollection in the course of time, objects that have remained 'mavericks', or inhindsight do not meet the desired qualitative criteria. In a number of cases adonation was accepted with the underlying idea that it might be the core for a newexpansion of the collection, but developing an active policy based on passiveacquisition has not always proved successful. The donation of a group of objectsmay also be accepted because it contains some good and useful items. In suchcases many museums consider deaccessioning advisable and permissible,provided the donation is not encumbered with restrictions.

Loans

In view of what has been said above it will cause no surprise that the importanceof loans to complement a museum's own collection has strongly increased. On thewhole it is a matter of temporary loans for exhibitions. Concomitant to the increasein the number of exhibitions is an increase in interlending, which is not without

problems.

Joost Willink of the Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst (Netherlands Office of Fine Arts)has summarised the problems in the Dutch quarterly Museumvisie. A majorproblem is the cost of insurance. Central government has tried to help by creatinga long-awaited `indemnity scheme' for the national museums. An additionalproblem is that ever higher demands are made on transport and accompanyingcouriers, also by insurance companies, which greatly raise the costs involved.Another new phenomenon is that lenders often require some financialcompensation, so that the interests of lender and borrower are becomingincreasingly divergent. A solution might be the exchange of loans, but this leaves alarge number of especially small museums in the cold, since they have `nothing' to

offer in exchange. They lack what is called in the United States `borrowing power'.Besides, the smaller museums (but they are not the only ones) are faced with everhigher conservation requirements made by the lenders and/or the insurancecompanies.

During a meeting of the art museums section of the Nederlandse Museumvereni-ging in June 1982 another problem was discussed. It appeared that certain artmuseums did not want to lend works of art for theme exhibitions, arguing that thevisual experience of a work of art would be impaired by emphasising aniconographical aspect.

Apart from temporary loans museums often also have long-term loans tosupplement their permanent or semi-permanent displays. Loans can upgrade anexhibition, but a museum depending too much on such loans is in a veryvulnerable position. Loans, from private individuals as well as from othermuseums, can at a certain moment be revoked. An extreme example of whatmight happen occurred when the Maritiem Museum Prins Hendrik asked for alltheir loans back (for registration and conservation purposes). As a consequencethe local history museum Gesigt van `t Dok, in Hellevoetsluis, had no option but toclose the museum as there was hardly anything interesting left to show after theMaritiem Museum had revoked its loans. The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum onlyaccepts loans for a period of at least two years, with a guaranteed right of firstrefusal if the objects were to be put up for sale.

Fieldwork

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Fieldwork as a form of external collecting plays an important role in archaeology,ethnology and natural history museums. For these museums it is the only way ofobtaining sufficient documentation and context information. Moreover, doingfieldwork is, in fact, the only way of becoming familiar with the area of research. Aproblem may arise when collections brought together by fieldwork fall under thecare of the museums via the mechanism of internal collecting. Notably in the fieldsof archaeology, biology and geology there are bodies that do fieldwork andconsequently amass collections without having any preservation duties. Thefollow-up has not always been equally well organised.

Collecting by fieldwork entails a number of specific ethical (and legal) problems,more than other forms of acquisitions. In a number of cases, for instance withregard to fieldwork abroad, this form of external collecting is difficult or evenimpossible for ethical or legal reasons. In such cases internal collecting is the onlypossibility, but this causes ethical and legal problems of a different kind (illicittrafficking).

Collecting premises

Besides the typology of collecting forms mentioned above, another typology canbe made, depending on the premises of collecting. These premises will depend onthe characteristic features of the collection. As a detailed description of such atypology is outside the scope of this publication a brief list may suffice. Adistinction can be made between: collecting masterpieces, systematic-encyclopaedic collecting, chronological-evolutionary collecting, ecologicalcollecting, and thematic collecting.

Collecting masterpieces is especially seen in art museums, more particularly in

museums of modern art. Many museums focus on a few artists or a few artmovements. Although the artists are seen as representatives of a certainmovement, or a movement as representative of a certain period, the underlyingidea is not to give a complete picture of art production in a certain period. Themuseum's collection is rather seen as an indicator of artistic quality than as anencyclopaedic research collection.

Systematic-encyclopaedic collecting is typical of the traditional natural historymuseums, which want to document the immense variety of forms in living natureand to make them accessible for research. Geological/palaeontological andarchaeological museums add to this a chronological perspective. In cultural history

museums it is especially the museums of technology that have from the verybeginning been focused on documenting development, especially in the sense ofcultural progress.

Ecological collecting wants to record material and functional connections. It is thestarting-point of what has been called `the new collecting' in museums of naturalhistory, ethnology, folklore and technology. In the cultural historical ambience thismanifests itself in collecting complete workshops and interiors. The ultimateconsequence of the ecological premise is functional preservation `in situ'.

Finally there are museums that have opted for a thematic premise. This isespecially the case with cultural history museums in the more limited sense of the

word, which are increasingly choosing this approach. Based on historical researchthey select some relevant themes that are further developed in the collection.

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4 Ethics and collecting

The debate on the ethics of collecting (and deaccessioning) can boast a long

tradition. The first official code of ethics of the International Council of Museumswas concerned with collecting. This ICOM Ethical Acquisition Code (1970) was forthe greater part adopted in the later ICOM Code of Professional Ethics (1986).

Preservation responsibility

The Code of Professional Ethics requires a museum to `adopt and publish a writtenstatement of its collecting policy'. Museums are expected to restrict themselves toobjects that are relevant to the purpose and activities of the museum, while theyshould also refrain from acquiring objects of which it will be clear in advance thatthey are difficult to store, conserve or exhibit.

With regard to the last issue the ICOM Ethical Acquisition Code is more specific. Italso states that the museum should not acquire objects that are not relevant to thepurpose of the museum, but distinguishes between the public task, the researchtask and the archival task. In other words, the exhibitry factor as such is nostandard in itself. In addition this Code mentions the possibility of collectingobjects in order to exchange them with fellow institutions later on.

None of the existing codes of ethics mention the responsibility of museums aspossible shelters for objects that have not yet found their eventual (museum)destination. A plea for such a task has inter alia been made by Van denEerenbeemt within the framework of industrial archaeology. The `breaking adrift'of historical and scientific material when factories and research institutes are beingclosed, demands quick action. A form of temporary shelter makes it possible todetermine the importance of the collection, or parts of it, and to look for a placewhere the objects might find their proper niche.

There is a restriction of preservation responsibility in the case of loans. The code ofethics of the American Association of Museums, published in 1978, stated thatmuseums need not undertake the care of loans at any cost. Although loans mayconsiderably raise the quality of a collection, museums should realise thatexhibiting an object may strongly influence the market value of an object.Moreover, lending objects to a museum may be a way out for the owner to save onthe cost of conservation, security, and insurance.

Negative effects of collecting

The 1986 ICOM Code assumes that museums should play a leading role in theefforts to halt the continuing destruction of the world's natural and culturaltreasures. The collecting policies of museums should not lead to the disturbance ofmeaningful contexts. This applies to the threat to ecosystems by collecting plantsand animals, as well as to the disturbance of archaelogical findspots byexcavating. A specific situation occurs when objects with an important cultural orcult meaning are collected. The ICOM Code does not pronounce upon this matter,but it is in accordance with the spirit of the Code that museums should be aware ofthe special meaning that certain objects have for certain communities.

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The ICOM Code is explicit in stating that the illicit trade in objects encourages thedestruction of cultural and natural heritage. Museums should therefore discouragethe illicit market by refusing to accept objects (either through commercial channelsor as donation, bequest, loan or in exchange) without valid proof of provenance.During a meeting on the subject of ethics organised by the NederlandseMuseumvereniging in February 1991 Harrie Leyten, curator of the Amsterdam

Tropenmuseum, has qualified this viewpoint. In his opinion it is imperative incertain cases to withdraw objects from the illicit market in order to safeguard theirsurvival or their availability. In such cases museums can act as short- or long-termtemporary custodians for a community that is somehow not able to look after itsown heritage.

A current subject of discussion is the ethics of collecting biological material. Thereare two vital questions: (1) is it still justified to collect plants and animals in view ofthe present threat to biodiversity (the diversity of life on earth), and (2) doescollecting and exhibiting biological material show enough respect for nature? Butthe discussion about these two aspects did not go beyond merely drawing

attention to the existing dilemmas and the complexity of the issues instead ofdeveloping new approaches. A certain difference of opinion - a difference ofapproach, at any rate - could be observed between the representatives of thelarge scientific institutions and the smaller, more public-oriented museums. Thereis an area of tension between the principle of nature conservation and the principleof animal protection. Where a scientific institution may work from the premise thatnon-endangered populations will suffer little from collecting activities, aneducational museum with local connections will be much more tied to itssupporters' perception of their environment (which is often interpreted politically).It is a problem that arises with regard to collecting (in this case a euphemism forkilling) rather than exhibiting. Dead animals, especially if well mounted, areaccepted fairly easily by the public. But do we still need them for the story we

want to bring across?

The discussion on ethics raises the question whether the required informationcould not be conveyed in other ways than through conserved plants and animals.Would it not be sufficient if only genetic material were collected? This broughtforth a unanimous `No'. No `gene bank' can ever replace the museum, for thecomplete organism and its variations are wanted. Only a small part of DNA isexpressed, and since we do not know the processes involved, preserving only thegenes will not be sufficient.

Professional co-operation

It is expected of museums that they are aware of each other's spheres of interestwhen formulating their collecting policies. Museums should appreciate each other'sscope of collecting, and avoid collecting material that is important for othermuseums without prior notice. This applies especially to field study. Plans for fieldstudies and collecting should be discussed in advance with all museums and/oruniversity institutions with similar or overlapping interests in the area or countrywhere this is to take place. The 1970 ICOM Code had the additional proviso that inthe case of fieldwork abroad, the material - after being processed - should be putat the disposal of the authorities of the country of origin, to be placed in a nationalor regional museum.

Return and restitution

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When UNESCO appointed an `Intergovernmental Committee of promoting thereturn of cultural property to its country of origin or its restitution in case of illicitappropriation' in 1978, a distinction was explicitly made between `giving back' i.e.`return', and `restitution'. Restitution means the transfer of objects that can bedemonstrated to have illegally left the country to whose cultural heritage theybelong (belonged). Return is used when ownership of objects has indeed beentransferred within the existing terms of the law, although there may be misgivingsas to the moral justification of the transfer.

The committee was appointed after the UNESCO `Convention on the means ofprohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership ofcultural property' in 1970. Many western countries,(including the Netherlands)have not yet signed this convention. This makes the voluntary acceptance bymuseums of the principles as explained above, of the utmost importance. Itapplies to collecting and deaccessioning policies alike.

5 Seventy-five years of national debate in the Netherlands

According to the 1976 government memorandum Naar een nieuw museumbeleid(Towards a new Museum Policy) it is the task of central government to draw upguidelines for a collecting policy and to `further a satisfactory allocation of tasksbetween the different museums and to locate and remedy any shortcomings in ourcollections.' New areas of collecting must be recognised in time: interconnection asan issue of national care. At last, after more than half a century, centralgovernment recognised its responsibility in this field. As early as 1918 the Neder-landsche Oudheidkundige Bond (Dutch Archaeological Society) had expressed itsconcern about the lack of interconnection. In its memorandum Over hervormingen beheer onzer musea (On the reform and management of our museums) thesociety advocated a reallocation of the collections, based on the view that allpublic collections should be seen `as one large collection, of which a logical anduseful distribution should be attempted'. The Rijkscommissie van Advies inzakeReorganisatie van het Museumwezen hier te Lande (The National AdvisoryCommittee on the Reorganisation of Museums in this Country) joined this point ofview in its 1921 report. The committee considered the existing order of Dutchmuseums a `living organic whole'. This idea of a national connection, taken upanew after sixty years, was to culminate in the concept of the `CollectieNederland' (Integrated National Museum Collections of the Netherlands) in 1990.

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Collecting and deaccessioning

A more intensive involvement of the government in museums, as expressed in itsmemoranda Naar een nieuw museumbeleid, Museumbeleid (Museum policy), andKiezen voor kwaliteit(Opting for Quality) in 1976, 1985, and 1990, did not lead tooverall guidelines or the implementation of an effective allocation of tasks. What itdid help to stimulate was a process in which attention was slowly but steadilyfocused on the preservation tasks of museums. National and regional enquiriesinto the state of museums yielded alarming figures with regard to the care ofcollections. The limits as to how much museums could grow seemed to have beenreached, also in view of the restricted financial means. Besides increased attentionfor conservation and registration this led to a public debate on decreasing thecollections. While the concept of deaccessioning was still unknown in thememorandum Naar een nieuw museumbeleid, the memorandum Kiezen voorkwaliteitmade a critical review of existing collections a cornerstone of its policyand provided a detailed procedure on weeding collections. The concentratedattention on deaccessioning parts of the collection from the media and politicians

somewhat diverted the attention from opinion forming on collecting, a process thathad received a special impetus in the 1980s.

Themes from the debate

The opinion forming on collecting received a special impetus from a series ofexhibitions and manifestations round the phenomenon of mass culture in theHaags Gemeentemuseum in 1981. Apropos of this exhibition the historical sectionof the Nederlandse Museumvereniging devoted its meeting in April of that year tothe post-1945 collection policy. In June the Haags Gemeentemuseum itselforganised a meeting with a discussion programme on `Mass Culture and MuseumPolicy', while the quarterly Museumvisie devoted most of its (extra large) fourth

issue of that year to `The new collecting in museums'. During the meeting of thehistorical section a working party was established to research the problems of`contemporary collecting'. A theme issue on `Contemporary Collecting' ofMuseumvisie in 1984 published the findings of this `Collecting Policy forContemporary Objects' working party, which in May 1985 published its final reportDe verbeelding van het heden (Representing the Present), in which the necessityof a phased approach was advocated, based on co-operation and specialisation.

In the early 1980s the spotlight 'suddenly' focused also on private collecting.Several articles appeared in which private collectors were portrayed as examplesof the `new collecting', i.e. collecting of everyday objects of usage like cigarette

lighters, beer cans, number plates, jelly moulds, corkscrews, piggybanks, etc.Several museums organised exhibitions of such private collections, and in June1986 private collectors `even' got their own museum in the north of the country:the Verzamelmuseum (Collections Museum) in Stadskanaal, now in nearbyVeendam.

In the same period the collecting policies of art museums were also elaboratelydiscussed in a number of publications, in professional journals and in numerousarticles in dailies and weeklies. The most important points of discussion, besidesthe issue of deaccessioning, were twofold: how could museums of modern artpresent a clear image of themselves to the world, and the limited purchasingbudgets of museums. The increased attention for the collecting policies of

museums of modern art was partly due to the fact that quite a few new directorswere appointed in the middle 1980s. The discussion on policies in general, and

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collecting policies in particular was, however, to quote one of the new directors,Wim Crouwel of the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, a topic farmore discussed in the press than among museum directors.

Another topical theme of the 1980s was the phenomenon of growth. The theme ofthe 1988 spring meeting of the Nederlandse Museumvereniging was thedichotomy between quality and quantity. It was suggested at this meeting by Jan

Jessurun, Head of the Cultural Heritage Directorate of the Ministry of Welfare,Health and Cultural Affairs, that museums might do well to slow down theircollecting and devote more attention to consolidating what they had. Thisviewpoint was again emphasised by the Minister of Welfare, Health and CulturalAffairs himself, during his speech to the General Conference of the InternationalCouncil of Museums in The Hague (28 August 1989). In his farewell speech asDirector of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum on 18 September 1989, Simon Leviereplied to this by warning that too much attention for conservation and restorationat the cost of collection development would eventually turn against the museums.He made a plea for larger acquisition funds, having on a previous occasion

compared the present means to an `infamously low tip'.

Finally it should be mentioned that in the second half of the 1980s the interest inthe history of collecting rapidly increased. This was expressed on the one hand byan interest in the meaning of patronage for the arts, on the other hand by anumber of publications and exhibitions on collecting in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries. An example of the former is the study by Bram Kemper,professor of cultural sociology at the University of Amsterdam, on patronage andthe art market, while the latter is reflected in an exhibition in the AmsterdamsHistorisch Museum in 1992, `De wereld binnen handbereik' (The world withinreach). The research for the exhibition `Hollandse Meesters uit Amerika' (DutchMasters from America) in the Mauritshuis in The Hague (1990-1991) was the

impetus for a symposium on `The art of collecting' on 26 October 1990, where artcollecting in Europe and America in the past was compared with more recentdevelopments on the art market.

Opting for quality

The government memorandum Kiezen voor kwaliteit was published in 1990,together with the Delta plan for the preservation of cultural heritage and thememoranda Bedreigd cultuurbezit (Cultural Heritage in Jeopardy) and Vechtentegen verval (Fighting Decay). Quality had now become the keyword, togetherwith the term `collection policy'. The combination of the two allowed the

development of the concept of `selection' in the sense of establishing priorities.Small-scale quality assessment (the individual museum) can also promote large-scale quality improvement if museums exchange parts of their collections. Thestarting-point should then be the integrated national museum collections, the`Collectie Nederland'.

`Collectie Nederland'

The ideal of an integration of national collections was already strongly advocatedin the 1919 and 1921 memoranda. Integration should be accomplished by`exchange'. The proposed reallocation of all Dutch museum holdings has neverbeen realised. The subject was discussed again at the National Museum Day on 10

May 1952, when Prof. Hendrik Engel, director of the Zologisch Museum inAmsterdam gave a survey of the situation in natural history museums. His report

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closely corresponds to the established structure of natural history museums asformulated in the memorandum Een zaak van leven en dood (A matter of life anddeath) published by the then Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work in1982. This memorandum was the first to deal with the different museum sectorsbased on the government memorandum Naar een nieuw museumbeleid. Its majorpoint of departure was a geographically based structure, with regard to collectingpolicy as well as target group orientation.

Such a logical structure was less obvious for the other sectors. It was decided tochoose for a structure that would combine the maintaining of major existingcollections with a regional distribution of facilities for public services. Notably artmuseums had to make a choice: to continue broad-based collecting or tospecialise. In fact the `broad-based' option amounted to deciding in favour of thedissemination-of-culture ideal. For contemporary art there was also the fear ofmuseums outside the Randstad - the conurbation of Western Holland - of beingconsidered regional, i.e. parochial, and of not being taken seriously. As a resultinnovative acquisitions were scarce and it was often the same artists whose works

were bought. Despite the various consultative bodies there was very littlecoordination qua collecting policies.

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Exchange

In the course of the 1980s the idea of opting for specialisation became increasinglystronger, provided specialisation would be based on an overall museum vision.Exchange of parts of the collections should create a kind of decentralised nationalcollection. In its government memorandum Kiezen voor Kwaliteit centralgovernment explicitly decided on the whole existing order of museums as theframe of reference for its museum policy. The policy of the Minister of Welfare,Health and Cultural Affairs is based on museum functions instead of on separatemuseum institutions and encompasses all institutions and collections. It wants toupgrade the overall quality of Dutch museum collections, for instance bypromoting collection movement (exchange, loan, donation) and by influencingacquisition policies through targeted subsidies.

For some categories of museums (e.g. the museums of natural history and themuseums of technology) decisions have always been made within a wider,European framework. In view of the coming European integration one might speak

of a `Collectie Europa' (Integrated European Museum Collections).

Working towards specialisation without aiming at a monopoly seems to be themuseum stance at the moment. The question remains if this should beaccomplished by exchange of parts of the collections and - most important - if so,should this mean transfer of control or transfer of title. Suggestions of an`exchange mart' were made by several parties, including the Ministry of Welfare,Health and Cultural Affairs. Lately the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum has contributed toa more clearly delineated structure of the `Collectie Nederland' by the transfer ofparts of its collections to other museums. The collection of musical instrumentswas transferred to the Haags Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, its carriages andsledges to the Nationaal Rijtuigmuseum (National Museum of Coaches) in Leek, the

bookbindings to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library) in The Hague, and itsmilitaria to the Koninklijk Nederlands Leger- en Wapenmuseum in Delft. Aloan/exchange agreement was made with the Mauritshuis in The Hague, with theunderstanding that the Rijksmuseum would focus on Spanish and Italian masters,while the Mauritshuis would concentrate on Southern Netherlandish and Germanworks of art.

An important extramural collection of art is housed at the Rijksdienst BeeldendeKunst, which manages different kinds of collections. Within a period of four yearsthe works of `Cultural Value' (predominantly work made by artists with a-discontinued - government allowance) will be distributed among social non-profit

organisations like art-lending centres/art libraries, hospitals, etc. By an activedistribution approach works of `Special Cultural Value', i.e. works of museumstandard quality, will as much as possible be accommodated in museums andrelated institutions. By a targeted loan policy the Rijksdienst promotes `profilecollections' - distinctive, representative collections - (early Italian painting in theBonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, still lifes in Het Prinsenhof in Delft, landscapesin De Lakenhal in Leiden and eighteenth-century painting in the Rijksmuseum

Twenthe in Enschede).

Basic collections and profile collections

By now a collection paradigm has been developed in the museum world: a basic

collection supplemented by a specialisation (a profile collection). This has beenmost fully implemented in botanical gardens (`decentralised national botanical

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collection'). A comparable model has been introduced by Edy de Wilde in the VanAbbemuseum in Eindhoven. In the botanical gardens model the basic collectionhas a predominantly educational function. The most important groups of plants areon display or, in the case of a modern art collection, some works of art from themodern classics. The profile collection adds an extra dimension to the collection.

This collection is related to the museum's scholarly or scientific function, or basedon its research tradition, a special link with donors, etc.

In natural history museums there is growing opposition to the geographicalparadigm. A regional collection is partly of regional origin, but may be of nationalimportance. Curators of regional and local museums do not consider it necessarythat scientific importance ipso facto implies national preservation, i.e. preservationin a national scientific institution. Moreover, there is a strong wish among regionalmuseums of scientific profiling through a collection of high quality. The question isespecially apparent in the case of a thematic specialisation without a regional/localfoundation. Should mere chance be the criterion to keep or not to keep? At anyrate the premise for specialisation and reallocation should be that collections

remain, or are deposited, in institutions with the relevant knowledge and expertise,in order to keep the collections `alive'.

Jan Vaessen does not advocate the idea of a `Collectie Nederland', and thematicspecialisation. He considers it impossible and utterly undesirable. Instead of aimingat total harmonisation, the policy should be directed at a deliberate proliferation ofperspectives. In other words, no exchange of parts of collections, but the actualconfrontation of different visions on the present and the past.

National debate

The cultural-political choices made in the government memorandum Kiezen voor

kwaliteit led to a debate on the preservation of cultural heritage in De Balie,Amsterdam on 14 March 1991. This debate saw a connection between the currentinterest in the preservation of cultural heritage and the debate on modernismversus post-modernism. The emphasis on preservation of cultural heritage wasseen as expressing a post-modernistic ideal. One of the participants, Adriaan vander Staay, even considered the idea of the culture-generating museum to be thetail-end of modernistic thinking. In a post-modern period, as he put it, museumswill be especially judged according to their successful preservation of the culture ofthe past for the public. This added weight to the statement made by Jan Vaessen,that an intellectual discussion on collection development is lacking in theNetherlands. Challenged by this statement, and trying to provide some

compensation for the disproportionate attention for deaccessioning, theNederlandse Museumvereniging decided to resume the thread of the early 1980sdebate.

During August and September 1992 leading members of the museum profession,archival staff members, university researchers and private collectors were invitedby the Nederlandse Museumvereniging to join in a debate on collecting. It washoped that the individual participants and the report on the debate would providea new stimulus for active reflections on collecting policies. The debate was theoverture to the `National Collecting Year', as declared by the national associationof private collectors. The National Collecting Year happened to coincide with the75th anniversary of the report by the Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond (now the

Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond), in which ideas were developed onthe collecting policies of museums in a national context. Much of what was said at

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the time still applies. This does not imply that nothing has changed in themeantime. The revival of interest in collecting as a culture-generating stimulusresults from a spectacular vitality developed by the museum institution as suchover the past decades.

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As this publication is made for a non-Dutch readership most references to sourcesin Dutch have been left out. They have been included in: Peter van Mensch, Voornu en later(Nederlandse Museumvereniging, Amsterdam 1993).

G.G. Bank, 'Determining the Cost: Architect George Hartman's Formula', MuseumNews 66, 1988, (5): 74.

Bedreigd cultuurbezit(Ministerie van WVC, Rijswijk 1990).

A.M. Bevers & M.E. Halbertsma, Behouden is kiezen. Over het verzamelen,selecteren en wijzigen van museale collecties (Ministerie van WVC, Rijswijk 1991).

M. Conforti, 'Expanding the Canon of Art Collecting', Museum News 68, 1989, (5):36-40.

B. Lord, G. Dexter Lord & J. Nicks, The Cost of Collecting. Collection Management inUK Museums (London 1989).

M.C. Malaro,A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections (Washington 1985).

P. van Mensch ed., Professionalising the muses (Amsterdam 1989).

P. van Mensch, 'Museums in the Netherlands: an "embarrasment of riches"',Museum 1989, (162): 120-123.

Museum collecting policies in modern science and technology. Proceedings of aseminar held at the Science Museum, London, 3 November 1988 (ScienceMuseum, London 1991).

G. Nooter, 'Ethics and acquisition policy of anthropological museums in TheNetherlands', in: P. Kloos & H.J.M. Claessen eds., Current anthropology in theNetherlands (Rotterdam) 156-164.

B. Nystrm & G. Cedrenius, Spread the responsibility for museum documentation -a programme for contemporary documentation at Swedish museums of culturalhistory(SAMDOK, Stockholm 1982).

S. Pearce, Museums Objects and Collections (Leicester 1992).

G. Rosander ed., Today for tomorrow. Museum documentation of contemporarysociety in Sweden by acquisition of objects (SAMDOK, Stockholm 1980).

L. Rosenbaum, 'The Anxious Acquisitors',ARTnews 88, 1989, (3): 144-151.

V. Sofka ed., Collecting today for tomorrow. ICOFOM Study Series 6 & 7 (Stockholm1984).

Special issue 'Collecting: A New Canon for the '90s', Museum News 68, 1989, (5).

Special issue 'Naar een nieuw verzamelbeleid', Museumvisie 5, 1981, (4).

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Special issue 'Eigentijds verzamelen', Museumvisie 8, 1984, (2).

E. Stavenow-Hidemark, Home thoughts from abroad. An evaluation of the SAMDOKHomes Pool (SAMDOK, Stockholm 1985).

Z.Z. Stransky, 'Metologicke otazky dokumentace soucasnosti', Muzeologicke sesity1974 (5): 13-43.

W.E.Washburn, 'Collecting Information, Not Objects', Museum News 62, 1984, (3):12-15.

F. Waidacher, Handbuch der Allgemeinen Museologie. Mimundus 3 (Vienna 1993).

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Documents

E For now and ever