The Law and Ethics of Deaccessioning
Ever heard of ‘deaccessioning’? It’s a mouthful to say (even more awkward to type), but it is a critical component of collection management. In archive-speak, ‘accessioning’ is the process of adding an item to your collection by assigning it a unique identifier number and creating a corresponding database record. Deaccessioning is (you guessed it) the process of removing an item from your collection.
Deaccessioning is a necessary part of collection management, so it’s important our archivists are up to date with sector best practice. Earlier this month, three of our Curatorial Archivists attended a half-day course on the law and ethics of deaccessioning run by Emily Gould and Alexander Herman from The Institute of Art and Law.
The course addressed two key questions: ‘can you deaccession?’ (the law) and ‘should you deaccession?’ (the ethics). We learned about the different legislation that applies to national collections and charity collections, in the UK and internationally. Some laws are designed to protect collections against exploitative deaccessioning, while other legislation supports deaccessioning for ethical return (such as the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009 and Human Tissue Act, 2004).
Organisations must also abide by any specific conditions in their agreements with donors. Many cases for restitution and repatriation are not required by law, but rely on ethical decision-making and sector guidance (such as Arts Council England’s Restitution and Repatriation guide).
In addition to legal and ethical rationale, deaccessioning is often a practical decision. The title of a 2003 report by the National Museum’s Director’s Council puts it directly: ‘Too Much Stuff?’. It is important that collecting institutions understand their capacity and unique area of value to avoid slipping from caring for collections into simply hoarding. There have been some recent examples of institutions deciding items aren’t suitable for their collection but finding alternative ways for them to stay in the public domain, for instance the Science Museum recently deaccessioned and donated hundreds of duplicate cameras to college and university art departments.
The key message our Curatorial Archivists came away with was the importance of ‘transparency, collaboration and fairness’ when navigating deaccessioning.
– Caitlin Lynch, Curatorial Archivist
The Measure of a Man is 35mm
They call him Mister Tibbs…
We’ve spent the last few days preparing 35mm prints for our upcoming Sidney Poitier season. So far over 400,000 frames have passed through our gloves and the great Sidney Poitier brings inimitable class to every single one – this frame from Edge of the City is a personal favourite!
– Milo Holmes, Trainee Film Conservator
A Christmas Orphan Finds A Home
The BFI National Archive looks after a number of orphans. It’s because our Collections Information Database is based around a family, or more accurately a hierarchy, to help us organise our data. In basic terms there are:
- Works: records which gives the details about who made a particular piece of moving image, who is in it, what it is about
- Manifestations: which tell you how that work was delivered to its audience, theatrically, broadcast, or re-released at a later date
- Items: the copies the Archive holds on that work, organised by Manifestation.
Follow me so far?
The poor orphans are those Manifestation records which are linked to one or more Items in the collection but are not linked to any Work record telling us more about them. Though we know what they are, they are disconnected and adrift from the bigger network of history that our filmographic records document.
In some cases it’s because the records were not linked when we brought two separate datasets together in the past. But for the majority, they are hanging around waiting for that Work record to be created.
A range of archive staff slowly correct this as they come upon them through their day-to-day work, but it is a big job to finish. So, in the holiday spirit I thought I would look to give a lucky orphan a home.
Meet record T-81126, titled “Stuffing His Christmas Goose” and flagged in the system as “Orphan Manifestations: Newsreels”. It’s a film for which we have multiples copies, including the original nitrate negative and a nitrate print, and which have had 35mm film preservation and viewing copies made from them. From the technical data in the record and a viewing of the film print I was able to identify it as a story from a Gaumont Graphic silent newsreel.
The film is either charming or bonkers, depending on your take. A baby is plonked on a blanket with a bowl of poultry feed and surrounded by geese who start to tuck in. At a certain point in the film the baby looks about to burst into tears (understandably!) and the camera was clearly stopped to settle the poor thing, before the action starts again. Some sympathy for the main subject dissipates when the baby gives one of the geese a whack, and it becomes pretty apparent that nobody is really delighted to be there.
Using Learning on Screen’s extremely useful News On Screen database I could identify this as a story from issue 601, released on Christmas Day 1916. With this information and my viewing I created new work records to place the film with the warm bosom of its catalogue family, an orphan no more. Warms the cockles, doesn’t it?
– Jez Stewart, Curator of Animation
South: Lego’s Glorious Epic of the Antarctic
It’s been an astonishing couple of years in the life of the BFI National archive’s great treasure, South (1919) – Frank Hurley’s groundbreaking record feature documentary of the survival of the members of Shackleton’s Imperial Transantarctic Expedition. In our preparations for the centenary of the death of Shackleton, and the end of the so-called ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic exploration, little did we know that his ship Endurance would be found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea on 9 March 2022.
South, this extraordinary piece of film history, demonstrates as clearly as anything can, the revolutionary effect of film in recording the events of world history. And nothing demonstrates the importance to the world of an object more, than being immortalised in… (drum roll) Lego! Accompanying the elaborate construction of the Endurance, in 3011 parts, is an extra – one of the lifeboats – perhaps the James Caird? With it is wonder of wonders, a little Frank Hurley action figure and the Prestwich Mark 4 cine camera on a tiny tripod.
It’s so hard to persuade people – even over a century after it fascinated its first audiences by recording the past – that film is a legitimate and vital historical document, up there with the diaries and reportage. Lego could have picked any number of important explorers to be a little action figure with Shackleton, but they picked the cameraman, Hurley. How satisfying. A win for film!
– Bryony Dixon, Curator of Silent Film
Coming soon… Inside the Archive: a Christmas special
We recently took our cameras to the BFI Reuben Library to record the latest installment of our ‘Inside the Archive’ video series – a Christmas Special!
Featuring librarian Anastasia Kerameos and a pre-cinema adaptation of a festive favourite, keep your eyes peeled on our YouTube playlist and the BFI’s social media channels later this week.
– Alex Prideaux, Marketing & Events Manager (Our Screen Heritage)
See you in the New Year!
We hope you’ve enjoyed the first six editions of our weekly, Inside the Archive blog.
We’ll now be on holiday until Tuesday 7 January 2025 but look forward to sharing more news and views from our archive crew, to help you battle the post-Xmas blues. Until then, Merry Christmas!
The Inside the Archive blog is supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.
