Coventry councillors urge transparency as city looks to remove surplus museum pieces
The move could free up space for items of greater relevance to local people
Coventry City Council needs to be ‘doing the right thing in the right way’ when it comes to disposing of some of the thousands of museum pieces kept in storage.
That was the message from Cllr Roger Bailey at a meeting of the communities and neighbourhoods scrutiny board when officers produced a list of items no longer wanted. It will now be down to the relevant cabinet member to have the final say on whether they should be cleared out.
A report considered by councillors at their meeting this week explained that large municipal organisations such as the city council collect a wide range of historical and artistic artefacts over time, through a combination of statutory archiving, donations and gifts, bequests, loans, commissions, and purchases.
In Coventry’s case, there are more than 300,000 listed items.
The report added: “In Coventry the significant proportion of these items are on loan, entrusted to the care of Culture Coventry Trust by way of a funding and management agreement and principally housed at Coventry Transport Museum, the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum and in ancillary stores.
“For one or more reasons, including the risk of contamination, a review of relevance and educational value of items to residents, or to free up space and resource to collect items of greater relevance to local people, the museum may periodically review arrangements and propose to dispose of certain items from the collections in its care. It is important to note that ‘disposal’ in this context is an asset management term, meaning deaccessioning/transfer out of the collection, rather than disposal in the waste/domestic sense.”
Officers explained that priority will be given to retaining the item within the public domain and it would therefore be offered to other accredited museums. If after a period of at least two months there have been no expressions of interest, items could be offered to other interested individuals and organisations.
The majority of the items in the list are glassware or ceramics, many coming from large collections donated to the city. Others were found including an earthenware storage jar uncovered during the Godiva Street culvert works carried out in 1968 and a small medicine bottle found in Potters Green.
Cllr Bailey said: “It is so important that we actually have more transparency so that members of the public can actually see what’s going on. Many of these items are from collections and we need to be careful what we do. They are coming from some famous local names including Brazil and Cash – these were big names in Coventry.
“We need to be seen to be doing the right thing for the right reasons. By bringing it to scrutiny it has that transparency.”