the ORM discussion inspired me to post this.

With zero exceptions that I can think of, every railway museum has collected more stuff than they can property care for. I'll guess the why isn't important for now. However - what to do about it?

How have some museum's taken on the deaccession process sucessfully without dividing up the membership and starting WWIII? Some success stories with details would be of value to me.

Thanks for sharing.

JimLundquist55@yahoo.com

Prevailing modes of railroad preservation:
1) Acquisition is easier than long-term care and maintenance.
2) Setting a theme for a museum is seldom realized during the acquisition phase. Grab it first and we'll think about a plan later.
3) Setting limits on acquiring more is darn near impossible, unless you just run out of space, money, donors, or good favor.
4) A seldom challenged expectation: The future is a limitless supply of volunteers, donations, and good will.
5) Rationalizing and paring down a collection to a manageable size is an invitation to civil war unless common sense and pragmatism prevail over sentimentality and greed.
6) Forget what you promise folks in hopes they forget.
7) RR preservation is just model railroading in 1:1 scale.
These don't apply in all cases, but they are certainly common threads in many museums and collections.
Added to the septuplet above is this version of Newton's Law of Inertia: A museum at rest will tend to stay at rest---and eventually rust.



denmeg_hogan@msn.com

> How have some museum's taken on the
> deaccession process sucessfully without
> dividing up the membership and starting
> WWIII?

I am feeling particularly curmudgeonly at present after answering GE a couple threads down so here goes:

Disenfranchise the members. Hire outside consultants who can make decisions from strictly business points of view, be the "bad guys" and disappear.

If done correctly, nobody will be happy about the result but the target of all that emotional reaction will be nowhere within the organization, and function as a common enemy to bring all the fractious splinters within the membership back together again.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

> Disenfranchise the members. Hire outside
> consultants who can make decisions from
> strictly business points of view, be the
> "bad guys" and disappear.

> If done correctly, nobody will be happy
> about the result but the target of all that
> emotional reaction will be nowhere within
> the organization, and function as a common
> enemy to bring all the fractious splinters
> within the membership back together again.

But what if it isn't done correctly? What you're describing sounds somewhat similar to what happened at ORM. Museum policy began to be dictated by a person (or people) who were not directly associated with many of the working members, and over whom the volunteers had little control. The working volunteers did unite as you predict: they all walked out together. They left the organization in disgust, and the people in charge simply didn't have the manpower to continue to upkeep the collection in the way the volunteers had.

This may have to do with the fact that most museum volunteers I know, like good Americans, feel it is important to have a voice in the way that their organization operates. If the voice is squelched I fear that, more often than not, the volunteers' investment in the museum will be perceived as having been deemed inconsequential and they will leave. While they may only leave temporarily, many people will take it personally and never return. A traditional museum cannot function without volunteers, hence you create another ORM.

Frank Hicks

Frank@gats.com

i work for the Western Railway Museum in california. Our Board has forind homes for several items.
They sent a street car back toSaskatoon, Canada, where it ran until 1951. It is now on static display in the Heritage Museum there.

The gave the pieces of a 2-6-2 lumber steamer to the Pacific Lumber Assoc, an organization which owns and operated sereral steam engines in Niles.

There was a Diesel-mechanical engine went to the Los Plumas County Museum where it first operated.

My favorite trade though was when David Conrad took an engine from Texas up to the National New York Central Museum in Indiana. NYC #3001 is one of the few modern NYCen engines to be preserved.

did you hear about the three way trade that sent a crane to the Baltimore Trolley museum? It is the only surviving piece of Baltimore work equippment.

Three way trades are the most benifit to the museums concerned. TM

ted_miles@NPS.gov

curmudgeonly , I love it! I've been curmudged!
I am collecting zingers here and there as so much of this stuff hits close to home if not directly on target. On one hand we all attempted to save too much and on the other look at all the stuff we missed. Sentiment be damned! how do you justify deacquisitioning the "last ofs" when there is no other home for them? What to do when 10 years down the road the "theme" changes and your equipment is redundant? Hang in there folks, better days is coming!


lamontdc@adelphia.net

A few quick comments about rationalizing collections (deaccessioning).

Step 1: Develop Mission Statement and make sure the membership knows it.

Step 2: Use the Mission Statement at the Board level to evaluate new acquisitions.

Step 3: Develop Collection Policy to codify procedures in dealing with the collections (in and out). Set forth who starts the process and when does the Board must approve.

Step 4: Following good museum practice, use any funds obtained from the disposal of a collection item to benefit the balance of the collection. To build or improve storage facilities would be a good use; to acquire or restore a more relevant item would also be a good use.

Get buy-in by the Board and the "movers and shakers" as you go through the process and through any deaccession. And be as open as you can about what you're doing.

Brian Norden

bnorden49@earthlink.net

Here at the East Troy Electric Railroad in Wisconsin, we have begun a deaccession program that follows the suggested guidelines of ARM. We sent a LaCrosse Birney body and four wheel truck to a museum in Appleton, WI. Nothing was asked for it in return, and it now is in a place where it may be eventually be restored as an example of a small city trolley.

There are problems with emotional attachment to equipment, particularly among those who helped to originally acquire it. The Birney sat here for 16 years, with no funds, resources, or interest in restoring it. Added to this was the fact that it was not practical for operation on the open track of our former interurban line. So rather than have it take up valuable space in the carbarn, it was sent on its way.

Other cars which have no chance of being restored will be deaccessed in the next several years. Trying to save everything is futile at best, and selfish at the worst.

East Troy Electric Railroad
jftrolley@aol.com

Can't agree more with your points, in particular being open with your actions! Nothing worse than making decisions in secret or without consensus and then telling folks "my way or get out of the way." I would add you also need a buy-in consensus from the volunteers and regular museum members who are not officers or board members.

> A few quick comments about rationalizing
> collections (deaccessioning).

> Step 1: Develop Mission Statement and make
> sure the membership knows it.

> Step 2: Use the Mission Statement at the
> Board level to evaluate new acquisitions.

> Step 3: Develop Collection Policy to codify
> procedures in dealing with the collections
> (in and out). Set forth who starts the
> process and when does the Board must
> approve.

> Step 4: Following good museum practice, use
> any funds obtained from the disposal of a
> collection item to benefit the balance of
> the collection. To build or improve storage
> facilities would be a good use; to acquire
> or restore a more relevant item would also
> be a good use.

> Get buy-in by the Board and the "movers
> and shakers" as you go through the
> process and through any deaccession. And be
> as open as you can about what you're doing.

> Brian Norden


denmeg_hogan@msn.com

They hired the wrong people Frank. Choose carefully.

Dave



irondave@bellsouth.net

Brian is dead on.

To quote Randy Gustafson's hat at ARM/ TRAIN 2001(replace "gift shop") "It's the mission statement, stupid." Your nothing without your mission statement. We have used it as the defining point for all of our deaccessions. Also, with a mission statement, you have the right and argument needed to say "no" to something that doesn't fit, with the idea that you wont have to deaccession (or at leadt as much) in the future.

Be responsible to your mission and your collection.

Peace out,

TJG

Port Huron Museum
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

Agree. The mission statement should be the guiding principle for a museum. Unfortunately, most RR museums were in the collecting mode before mission statements were hip or deemed necessary. Some mission statements are so vague (simply to preserve railroad history, educate the public,...blah, blah, blah) that it does nothing more than justify the status quo.
My salute to those museums that have actually used a mission statement to mold their preservation efforts.

denmeg_hogan@msn.com

thank you for sharing - glad the movement is working towards being better in this area. I agree with a carefully worded mission statement bought in by all the members.

Where can the ARM guidelines be found?

JimLundquist55@yahoo.com

> thank you for sharing - glad the movement is
> working towards being better in this area. I
> agree with a carefully worded mission
> statement bought in by all the members.

> Where can the ARM guidelines be found?
Here's the link to the ARM web page. Look under "Recommended Practices".

ARM Website
shaymech@hotmail.com

The way collections are handled at our facility, may not be typical. Being a government facility, deaccession is very structured for any state accessioned artifact. We also have our nonprofit Foundation that owns a sizeable chunk of the collection. The controlling factor between the two groups is the Rolling Stock Committee. Consists of about 6 people from both sides of the aisle.

This committee is responsible for the periodic review of the collection, decisions on acquisition and deaccession and major restoration decisions. Deaccessions that I am familiar with include the sale of a baggage car to another group by our Foundation and the state's deaccession of a diesel locomotive to another Museum.

The sale was at a reasonable cost. Since the Foundation was the owner, no major bureaucratic headaches.

The deaccession of the locomotive took a couple years from when we were first approached. It involved going before the state historical commission to justify and get permission for the donation. The way the regs are written made the direct donation the best thing to do. Part of the process involved a visit to the planned recipient and a written plan from them for the preservation of the locomotive. I'm pleased to report that the group had the locomotive properly painted in about two months from the time it was lifted off the flatcar.

Acquisitions go through a similar process. The discussions are frequently lively, but everybody respects the groups decisions. We have a meeting next week that will involve discussions on an acquisition of another caboose. From the photos it looks like a fine use for a fusee. Should be interesting.



shaymech@hotmail.com