Collecting Policies

[Museumgirl]

I have a question regarding how other museums collect everyday items from their community. Of course every museum has its own scope on what they collect, but I'm wondering how you collect to represent your community as a whole. For example, even though certain toys, clothing, or furniture may not have been made in your area, they were still used by those living there and are representative of the people in a certain time period. How do you address these types of objects in your scope?

Our higher-ups are leaning towards streamlining what we collect. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it as there are way too many things in our collection that don't belong. However, I personally still feel that it is important to have items that represent the people even if they are things that are common and could possibly be found in other repositories. Just wondering how others deal with this!

[derrer79]

I too am curious about how people feel about this also. The same questions have often come to my mind many times when going through our collection.