Dear Distlist, One of our curators has asked me about the ethics and precedence for deciding whether or not a musical instrument in a museum collection should be maintained in playable condition. In the past, we have always treated musical instruments in our collection as static, non-operating historical objects, however a recent acquisition proposal has the curator wondering if we might wish to take a different approach with an instrument currently under consideration for acquisition. Can you please point me to good, recent discussions of this question in the conservation literature and/or policy documents from other museums that take this into consideration, in order to help us to make an informed decision?
Many thanks, Dee Dee Stubbs-Lee, CAPC, MA Conservator / Restauratrice New Brunswick Museum/ Musée du Nouveau-Brunswick 277 Douglas Avenue Saint John, New Brunswick E2K 1E5 Canada (506)643-2341 ****** Unsubscribe by sending a message to consdistlist-le...@cool.conservation-us.org Searchable archives: http://cool.conservation-us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/
