section move/section removal?

Hi, Taryn!

I am so sorry for commenting so late, but I was 100% sure that I had already commented on your wiki post. I had read it with great interest because I am kind of obsessed with museum archives, but clearly my brain shorted out when I went to comment.

You have done a terrific job with your wiki. I wonder if you might consider moving your three case studies to the end so that we get all of the contextual and background information necessary to understand them. That would take a little bit of rewording in some places, but the flow might work slightly better. Also, I agree with Jessie that an argument could be made for moving the section "curators and archivists" under the challenges section, since the relationship between these two groups certainly seems to be a challenge at times.

Also, I thought that you could expand on this idea a little bit:

"Accession files or object files are those which detail initial contact between the museum staff and the donor or vendor, correspondence regarding negotiations about the object, provenance and background information, and various financial documents."

I was wondering if you had found anything about records of acquisitions or donations being used later in situations involving culturally sensitive objects or objects that may have been acquired in less than legal ways before the introduction of laws that regulated the acquisition of cultural heritage objects? If so, this would be an interesting and relevant thing to mention, especially seeing as you give MOA as an example. Obviously, if you haven't found anything in the literature about this, don't worry about it, but it was something that jumped out at me!

Thanks for linking to my page!

Hi Chelsea,

Thanks so much for your feedback regarding the sections. I didn't really think to move the case studies to the end of the wiki, but now that you've mentioned it, it makes a lot of sense! I've also moved (after much prompting) the archivists/curators section into challenges! I don't want to get too carried away adding unnecessary content, so sticking with their roles in relation to each other seems like the right road to take. I have found a LOT of literature regarding the repatriation of museum objects, especially objects that were stolen during world war two, however nothing I've found so far mentions the acquisition records or donation records that went along with those objects. It does sound like a very interesting thing to look in to, so perhaps I'll dig a little deeper and see what I can find!

Thanks so much for your feedback, much appreciated!

Taryn