Code of Ethics: Museum Management

Introduction

Museum management is a profession in which offers more than just a junkyard for storage of old relics in a hidden wardrobe. The concept that museum is a storage place for objects are slowly being replaced by a recreation space, research centre, knowledge centre. Museums are not just repositories. They are places where collections are interpreted for the public through exhibits and related educational programs. How museums interpret their collections changes over time with the emergence of new techniques, scholarship, and viewpoints.

In accordance, museum management must follow a code of ethics in or order to achieve their goals at the end, forming a clear and transparent voice in which the public can gain awareness to what they are doing.

Professional ethics per se consists in searching for common answers to the questions everyone encounters in his or her professional practice, notably to those questions that cannot be answered by turning to existing rules and regulations or to the general norms prevailing in the community. Professional ethics presupposes the existence of an identifiable profession, but at the same time contributes to define a profession.

Museum ethics is a form of professional ethics. Professional ethics is the offshoot of general moral norms adopted by members of the same profession, who may be identified as a group. Strictly speaking ethics is concerned with theory, which is, contemplating as to what is right and just in a given situation.

The International Council of Museums defines the museum profession under article 5 of its Statutes as consisting of 'all of the personnel of museums or related institutions who have received a specialized technical or academic training or who possess an equivalent practical experience, and who respect a fundamental code of professional ethics'. In this respect it is important to note that many codes attempt to define the museum profession by putting up a partition against closely related fields of activity with conflicting interests, such as (art) trade. Museum codes unanimously exclude art trade from the museum profession.

Summary

Set Sail and Collect like pirates
Museums must be aware that in an age where information is exploding as an accelerated level. They cannot readily without judgement increase their threshold of collections quickly.

Many museums faces financial crisis in which is due to their management of collections. Facing difficulties, one can make uncertain judgements in which affects the trusts of the public.

In United States, The Milwaukee Art Museum, the museum has at least a $20 million shortfall that is forcing it to pursue something virtually unheard of in the art world -- offering up its collection as a guarantee for a loan. In Arizona, The $1 million sale of museum artifacts by a financially troubled museum in northern Arizona is sending shock waves through Utah's own museum community and leading to concerns the same thing could happen to cash-strapped museums.

This approach would violate ethical standards of the Association of Art Museum Directors, whose published guidelines caution that "the collections a museum holds in public trust do not represent financial assets that may be converted to cash for operating or capital costs or pledged as collateral for loans."

Collections are looted internationally
The J Paul Getty Museum, one of the world's largest and best endowed art collections, faces a fresh blow to its reputation following the publication of internal documents suggesting it ignored warnings that up to half of its highest profile antiquities acquisitions were looted from ruins in Italy. Know as early as 1985.

Sellers based in Thailand and Singapore are selling parts from Angkor Wat Temple, Cambodia - the two countries in South East Asia which have not been signatory to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. It is suspected that most artifacts illegally excavated by looters around Asia are transited through Singapore and Bangkok. In such, it raises controversy in which how governments could allow loopholes to take place, allowing such criminal activities to transact.

Even British Museum faces international furor in which most of their collections come from looting and plundering that took place during their Britain’s empire.

A profession has the responsibility to take the lead in setting the ethical standards by which its members are governed. The museum profession should set the example for governments, private collectors, and dealers with respect to all museum collections. This includes incorporating into museum acquisition policies the sense of such international conventions as the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property

Preservation of Collections
Preservation work in a museum is deem as the essence in which collections will sustain through time and proven a valuable asset to the public. Conservators in Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge face a huge dilemma
when a visitor tripped and fell down the stairs, smashing into three 17th century Chinese vases worth 500,000 pounds. The vases were smashed into hundreds of pieces. Conservators decided to repair the artifacts and showpiece them in relation to problems faced by museum professionals in handling exhibitions and caring of collections.

However, conservation practices vary across the world. In certain codes, restoration and conservation works are to be reached through minimal changes under conditions that collections are irreversible once changes are made to it. In china, many museums without following doctrines altered their collections in order to boost collections that are ready to be exhibited. Much of the time, porcelains were painted directly; causing damages in the long run, due to the chemistry involved causing burn and tears to the relics.

However, many museums around the world face the same issues daily: lack of funds. Without proper professional training of staffs and usage of technology to prevent the definite erosion of relics, many museums face uncertainty in their collections.

Museum is community.
Many times, we cannot reject the fact that the museums are serving the public and not a stand alone institution in which they can overwrite decisions. However, curators run a difficult situation in which decision made by the boards overwrite proper managements. Many a times, museums face problems that were accumulated through bad managements by boards. The public does not know of the activities within the museums until actions were taken. We can see clearly from the restoration of the lake in Yuan Ming Yuan, Beijing, as well as other museums which sell their collections without the consent of the public. Much of the time, public furors were splashed forward, causing scandals to be made known by the media.

Conclusion

Museums should have a proper standard operating procedures in which interactivity between the institution be made known.

The museum should made public that they are holders of the countries’ collections in trusts on behalf of the public/society. Relics and collections are reversible and irreplaceable. Once lost, the national identity in which the dissemination of knowledge will be much aggravated.

Museums should focus on public service, bringing in communication at levels in which transparency can take place. With public service offered at a higher level, museums can expect better performances through visits and interaction with the community. This will help to encourage people to explore collections for inspirations, learning and enjoyment.

Museums should also consult and involve communities, users and supporters. This way, the museums can understand how they can improve the situations. At the same time, the public will be more will informed of the situations in which the museums face.

Museums should acquire items honestly and responsibly. This could prevent unwanted loss of collections and public shame. In the Cases of looting, Museums should readily adopt new policies in which to put a curb to unwanted trading to take place in the future. While it seems unlikely that these cases will be settled anytime soon, there is a growing trend among museums to return art objects and artifacts to their countries of origin after ascertaining that the works were stolen. They should safeguard the long term public interest in the collections. Guidelines stipulated should show that curators should "respect the interests" of the communities from which objects of cultural value originate. And in an implicit admission of the dubious nature of some past acquisitions, it urges them to recognize that others may have a "stronger claim to certain items" than themselves. As the saying goes: “We are to be a repository for artifacts, not a clearinghouse,"

In order to improve situations, many museums stood down guidelines such as: reinvigorate thinking about the process of creating exhibitions, establish a system for regularly reviewing exhibition planning guidelines in order to gain a better stand or what and how they manage their collections and museums.

Museums should also recognise the interests of the people who made, used, owned, collected or gave items in the collections. Collections do not belong to one man’s decision board. The people involved should also have a say, especially donors. One would not like to see what was donated to be sold due to financial problems face. In doing so, it is best to identify accountability at all levels of the Institution to adhere from mistakes.

In conclusion, As Sinatra sang, "you can't have one without the other." Ethically, a museum must know and face what its actions have upon the public. Even so, it is not as simple as that. Collections are never permanent. It is always a fight against time before they disintegrate. That is the reason why Museum managers as professionals should always consider ethically what their actions will do and hold responsible for the future generations of museum professionals, the public and the nation.