Exploratory Study on Decision-Making Processes for Loans

As collection care professions have been advocating for more sustainable collection care practices (Environmental Guidelines, IIC and ICOM-CC Declaration, Bizot Green Protocol) and identifying the costs and risks of rigid climatic conditions, scientific research and new guidance have brought information and opportunities for revisiting our approach to the setting of environmental conditions. But one area of caring for collections environments where there is a noted discrepancy across research, policy, and practice is that of museum loans.

Exhibitions in general and loans still appear to be one strong factor driving median and relatively tight climatic parameters for collection environments. Prompted by the lack of change in environmental parameters requested for loans, and in an effort to understand what the barriers to change in professional practice might be, MCE undertook an exploratory year-long study to comparatively investigate some of the real conditions experienced by objects going through the process of museum loans in a broad range of institutions.

The goal was to gain insight into how loans operate in the real world in varied contexts and to gather different perspectives from a variety of disciplines in order to map out a broad and holistic picture of where environmental parameters lie within the loans procedures–including fault lines where frustrations and conflicts arise as well as confluences where things run smoothly.

The study adopted an anthropological approach to the topic, conducting interviews with professionals involved in various parts of the loans process to gain insight into relationships and communication between and within institutions, and attempting to create a discussion of environmental parameters that does not only revolve around input from the field of conservation. Collecting and synthesizing these experiences, opinions, and motivations in a systematic way provides evidence of the real-world loans that cannot be found in existing published material on loans, which is generalized and instructional. In this way, the project aimed to shed light on why practices do not reflect recent developments in research and policy.

The study consisted of open-ended interviews discussing broad concepts relating to loans to hear general insights on process, organization, change over time, frustrations, and preferences. Interviewees were selected by the “snowball sampling” method of first consulting people known to researchers, who then refer contacts from their own personal network for further consultation. Since the subject of loans is a sensitive topic that entails issues of confidentiality, the snowball sampling method was valuable for providing an early foundation of established knowledge and trust.

Interviewees were based in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, and Brazil, and included those currently working in one or more of the following fields: conservation, registration, exhibitions, collections management, curation, and insurance (underwriting, brokerage, and risk management). Institutions represented included national or other large museums of art and natural history, library special collections, artist estates and foundations, and insurance companies. For the second round, New York City was chosen as a focused location for gathering data because of the density and variety of lending and borrowing institutions. These interviews had a more focused concentration on issues such as environmental standards, historical sources of damage to loans, and what protocol and consequences follow such damage.

Study team

Joel Taylor and Caitlin Spangler-Bickell

Advisory panel

Jonathan Ashley-Smith, Laura Doyle, Thor Nørmark-Larsen and Helen Privett