2018 Louisiana Laws
Revised Statutes
TITLE 25 - Libraries, Museums, and Other Scientific
RS 25:1101 - STATE UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS

CHAPTER 24. STATE UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS

§1101. Sale and deaccession of university museum collection items

A. All state university museums shall protect and improve the quality of their collections through the sale, exchange, transfer, or disposal of artifacts. Deaccessioning is the process of permanently removing accessioned artifacts from the museum collections.

B. Artifacts in the museum's collections shall be sold or deaccessioned only if they have lost their physical integrity, usefulness, authenticity, or relationship to the museum's purposes, or if their sale would distinctly improve the quality of the museum's collection.

C. Museum artifacts are state property and shall be disposed of in compliance with this Chapter and other appropriate state and federal regulations and established museum collections policy.

D. No object may be sold or deaccessioned less than two years after its acquisition by the museum.

E.(1) Proposals to sell or deaccession collection materials shall be made by the museum professional staff to the museum director who shall make a recommendation to the university's board of supervisors.

(2) The university's board of supervisors shall accept or reject the recommendation of the museum director. Acceptance of the recommendation to sell or deaccession shall require a majority vote of those board members voting.

F. Deaccessioned objects shall be disposed of by one or more of the following methods:

(1) Exchanging, exclusively with nonprofit institutions, for objects of equal or greater monetary or historical value.

(2) Transfer to a nonprofit institution or state agency.

(3) The sale of objects only through competitive means when the museum's identity may or may not remain anonymous.

(4) Destruction of deaccessioned objects which are of a hazardous nature or in a state of deterioration beyond redemption.

(5) Transfer of the object to the museum's educational collection.

G.(1) Persons, including state university employees, volunteers, members of a museum board, members of a museum support organization or other affiliated associations, or their families or representatives, may acquire deaccessioned objects only by participating in an approved public sale which complies with established museum collections policy and current museum ethics as published by the American Association of Museums.

(2) However, no person or member of his immediate family who has the authority to place such object for sale may participate in such a sale or otherwise acquire such an object.

Acts 1999, No. 666, §1.