Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies

Collections care is a core responsibility for all museums that own, care for, or use collections. The foundation stone for good collections care is a good collections management policy. Things Great and Small is the first to comprehensively address how to write such a policy for any type of museum. Drawing on his extensive experience-as director of the University of Kansas museum studies program, collections manager at the university's museum of natural history, and surveyor for AAM's Museum Assessment Program-John Simmons reviews the issues that a collections management policy should address and the pros and cons of choosing one policy option over another. Developed with assistance from the AAM Registrars Committee.

About the Author :
John E. Simmons (B.S., systematics and ecology; M.A., museum studies) began his professional career as a zoo keeper before becoming a collection manager at the California Academy of Sciences and later at the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas, where he also served as Director of the Museum Studies Program until 2007. Simmons has extensive experience in biological field work in Latin America and SE Asia. He has published more than 150 papers and books on museology and the care of collections, particularly for natural history. Since 2008 Simmons has run Museologica, an international museum consulting service. In addition, he has taught workshops and university classes in the US, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East on the care of collections and legal and policy issues in collection management, and served as thesis advisor for five museology graduate students at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogota). Simmons received the Superior Voluntary Service Award (American Alliance of Museums, 2001); the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Graduate Students at (University of Kansas, 2005); the Carolyn L. Rose Award for Outstanding Commitment to Natural History Collections Care and Management (Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, 2011); the Dudley-Wilkinson Award of Distinction (Registrars Committee of the American Alliance of Museums, 2016); and the Spiritus Award for Excellence in Service and Management of Herpetological and Ichthyological Collections (American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 2029). Simmons has taught training sessions on care of natural history collections for curators of the Department of the Interior, Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Museum Study LLC, and for museum staff worldwide. Simmons was the keynote speaker for theConservation des colecciones d'Histoire naturelle en fluids: Retours d'expériences et perspetives at the Muséum national d'Historie naturelle, Paris in December 2018.