Ethics, Standards, and Professional Practices

Direct Care of Collections

Image of the cover of the Direct Care of Collection Guidelines and Recommendations Update from 2019

Direct Care of Collections: Ethics, Guidelines, and Recommendations provides field-wide guidance on the use of proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned objects. It focuses specifically on direct care, a phrase that has caused confusion since it was first used in the AAM Code of Ethics for Museums in 1993. First issued in 2016, the paper was updated in 2019 to reflect the updated FASB accounting standard that allows for direct care as well as acquisition.

The paper will be further updated to reflect changes to the approved use of funds from deaccessioned art made by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), and AAMD’s specific definition for “direct care.”

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Learn about the history and development of this paper.

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