Museum Collection Policy

Franklin Historical Museum - Collection Policy Statement (updated January 27, 2025)

The Franklin Historical Museum will collect a comprehensive collection of objects, artifacts, and documents pertaining to the history of the Town of Franklin which meet with its mission statement and collection scope. This includes, but is not limited to, furniture, paintings, textiles, agrarian tools, photographs, instruments, and historical documents. 

Due to limited storage space, established goals, and financial and ethical constraints, it is neither feasible nor professionally responsible for the Museum to allow indiscriminate growth of collections. Objects, therefore, must meet the following conditions in order to be accessioned:

• Materials must meet the ongoing research, exhibitions, and education programs of the Museum or fill gaps and improve the comparative series in existing collections.
• Materials must be physically stable and clean of mildew and mold.
• The Museum must be able to properly house and preserve the materials as well as ensure accessibility to them.
• The Museum shall not knowingly and willfully accept or acquire any object that was acquired or imported illegally or that was received under circumstances that would encourage irresponsible damage to or destruction of biota, cultural and natural sites, or human burial places. However, the Museum may accept such objects that have been confiscated and offered to the Museum by government authorities. 
• All possible efforts will be made to ensure that the donor has clear ownership of the materials to be acquired and no conflict of interest with the Museum.
• Donations become the legal property of the Museum. Any accompanying copyrights and/or literary property rights are conveyed to the Museum. The donor must be willing to sign the Museum’s Deed of Gift with no restrictions concerning use or further disposition of the materials with the exception of the date of public access.
• The Museum staff will not give official, legally binding monetary appraisals of materials. The donor must obtain an independent appraisal.

All documentation will be retained. No object, once accessioned, may be removed from the Museum, except if on temporary basis for loan or conservation purposes. Accession procedure to be as follows:

• At the time an object is donated to the Museum, a receipt will be issued to the donor by way of a Receipt of Donation form. Additional acknowledgment may be sent in the form of a business letter.
• The new object will be given an accession number in the form of year.objectnumber (for example, 2019.001) and entered into the Past Perfect database. Information about the object including a title, description of the object, measurements, provenance, dates, and subject headings will also be entered into the database. The database will be backed up periodically.
• The object will then be processed and housed in the proper place.

The Franklin Historical Museum retains complete control over the use of its collections. No commitment, either stated or implied, concerning permanent display, placement, use, or retention within the collection will be made to the donor. The archivist is the final authority of acceptance or rejection of donations into the collection. If an object falls outside of the scope of the Collections Policy, the archivist may call on the Collections Committee for approval. 

Objects may be temporarily removed from or received into the collections by loan when the purposes of the Museum can be best served by this action. It is the responsibility of the Museum to obtain full legal documentation of the terms and conditions covering loans.