Art for money’s sake?

The past decades, museums have had to cope with increasing financial pressure, confronting them to new challenges. The economic crisis had important consequences on corporate, private as well as public support. As a result, it has been necessary to consider new ways of managing museums. In this context, deaccessioning has become increasingly considered as an efficient collection management tool. Deaccessioning is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the “official removal of an item from a library, museum, or art gallery in order to sell it” (Oxford Dictionary Online, 2016). Surprisingly enough, despite the key role of museum professionals in deaccessioning processes and decisions, few systematic empirical studies have been conducted on their practices and attitudes related to deaccessioning. This research aims to fill this gap. United Kingdom has been chosen to collect the empirical data since that, as a common law country, deaccessioning is legally more admitted. More diversity in the practices and attitudes to be observed was therefore expected. The thesis is based on the data from an extensive literature review, written sources related to this practice, a web survey amongst museum professionals, and several qualitative interviews. Factor analyses and regression models were used to look at the survey data. This inquiry led to several findings. First, deaccessioning is much more complex than it may seem at first glance. It does not only cover a wide range of practices: it is also driven by diverse motives and difficult financial times are only one of the factors that pushes deaccessioning decisions. Second, item sales are more limited than it can be suggested by the literature. This seems related to the complexity of codes and guidelines related to deaccessioning, the sanctions in case of non-compliance, as well as the skeptical attitudes of museum professionals. More specifically, professionals seem more favorable than visitors towards deaccessioning when it is motivated by reasons related to the items themselves (e.g., interest, visitability), whereas they seem less favorable than visitors when deaccessioning is motivated by reasons related to the museum (e.g., buildings, services). Third, the research has identified two important factors of museum professionals’ attitudes towards deaccessioning. On the one hand, a “cultural” factor seems to play a role at the individual and institutional levels. Indeed, museum professionals who have a professional experience in the private sector, as well as those working in a private museum, are more inclined to support deaccessioning (for item-related reasons) than those who have a public-sector experience or work in a public museum. On the other hand, when museum professionals are clearly aware of deaccessioning rules and guidelines, and of the risks they are exposed to in case of code breaches, they prefer not to deaccession at all. To conclude, the practical implications of these findings are discussed and several avenues for future research are suggested.