My position on the Benberry collection

My understanding is that this blog is what we are using to replace the conference call we scheduled for late Nov. The following is what I wanted to say on the conference call about my position on the Benberry collection and TQHF mission in general.

I am opposed to accepting the entire collection of Cuesta's quilts that seems to be offered to us by her family. I think it would set a bad precedent for future collecting and weaken our position with future donors who may want us to accept their entire collections and it does not fit into our scope of collections as I understand it. Also we are in no position finacially or logistically to accept this collection and we have a responsibilty as trustees (board members) to prudent trusteeship of all we accept.

We are a Hall of Fame. Our goal is to honor all the inductees with a REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE of quilts and needlework as well as documentary material associated with the life and work of each inductee where applicable. This is spelled out in our policy under Scope of Collections. When I wrote that policy I researched halls of fame and their particular issues and it became clear that the most common problem for hall of fame museums is the lack of selectivity in what is collected and the burden this puts on the museums. It was clear that too much memorabilia lacking in significance for each inductee was the most prevelant reason for the failure of these types of museums. This convinced me to word the scope of collections the way I did and I still feel this is sound policy for a hall of fame. In the case of the particular collection we are concerned with now I am not convinced by looking at the list of quilts George sent us that that they will all be useful in a hall of fame as "documents" that help the public understand why Cuesta is an honoree.

The question of money, or lack thereof, keeps coming up and the point about "is money the bottom line here?" has been posed by some of us as well as the issue of staff time and storage space. Several members of our group feel we should be "bold" here and" try and meet this challenge" and accept all of Cuesta's collection, "afterall it may be very useful to us in the future" and" may have a large chachet in the quilt world" etc., and so forth along those lines. This is a common rationalization among non-profits, especially museums. If there are assets to be acquired or money to be made or publicity to be obtained non-profits will often rationalize that all means should be used to accept the offer. This approach is the very antithesis of prudent trusteeship. A prudent trustee (board member) looks carefully at the long term effects of decisions and recognizes the importance of not compromising integrity with an ill thoughtout accession or other decision. Trustees have a responsibility to explore the relative cost of each offered donation as well as the need to focus collecting so that demands do not exceed resources. This Benberry collection will place maintenance demands on our resources that cannot be justified and set a precedent we will not be able to live with. For a museum nothing is free; every time an object is accepted there is a committment of time and money to manage that object effectively. Merely storing and keeping track of an object costs money. The best time to ward off over extension of museum resources is at the accession stage. Collecting goals must be realistic. The word already seems to be out in quilt circles the TQHF does not have storage space. If word gets out that we take poor care of objects in our collection by not storing things properly or being behind in our record keeping we will never build even the basic collection we will need because we will always have to rely on the generosity of our honorees to build our collection and they will hesitate if they feel we are not responsible.

No organization can collect everything so the prudent board sets collecting limits that reflect its mission, its staff expertise and the capability of the organization to manage the material in a responsible manner. We have a policy. It may well need some changes. It was written by one person (me) before there was really even a museum. But I think it is basically sound and I think if we stray from the principles of good management at this point in the life of TQHF we will be making a big mistake. I take my trustee reponsibilities very seriously and as I have said before I tend to be conservative when it comes to museum management. TQHF either needs to totally rethink and rewrite its management policy or it needs to stand by the current policy and not accept the Benberry collection as a whole. Even if we agree to a limited selection of Cuesta's collection we still face the issue of restrictions on the gift and I stand by the policy of accepting no restrictions.

I have gone on long enough for now and I hope my position is clear.
Lucille