Acquiring and Displaying Cultural Heritage materials

Organized by: CERL Cultural Property Working Group

Speaker(s): Adrian Edwards,Anne Pasquignon,Bente Granrud,Helen Vincent,Kristian Jensen,Lucy Mulroney,Michelle Light,Pierre-Jean Riamond,Roly Keating,Scot McKendrick

CERL Workshop - Acquiring and Displaying Cultural Heritage materials - posterThis CERL workshop was held as an in-person event at the British Library on Friday 15 September 2023. There was no hybrid option and no record of the event, because the organisers wished to ensure that participants felt free to openly discuss what at times might have been sensitive matters.

The facilitators of the sessions each had extensive experience in the field and aimed to organise the workshop so that much time was set aside for group work and discussion. The language of conversation was English.

Venue: British Library, London.

Programme

In the context of acquiring, exhibiting and lending cultural heritage objects, libraries set out to legally and ethically do the right thing. In this workshop we will explore how we can ensure such a legal and ethical approach through the application of due diligence and provenance research, and how relevant workflows and policies can be established. Together we will explore the potential tension between ‘legal’ and ‘ethical’, how the provenance of some items in our collection may make them unsuitable for display or lending, and what impact libraries’ research into the origins of cultural heritage objects may have on libraries’ relationships with donors, the book trade, and other libraries in their country.

– 9.00: Assemble in the BL meeting room
– 9.10: Welcome by Sir Roly Keating, British Library
– 9.15: Participants introduce themselves
– 9.30: Due diligence: presentations by Pierre-Jean Riamond, Chef du bureau du patrimoine Ministère de la culture, France and Lucy Mulroney, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Followed by group work
– 10.45: Break
– 11.15: Provenance research – introduction by Adrian Edwards, British Library and Anne Pasquignon, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Followed by group work.
– 12.30: Establishing a due diligence programme workflow by Helen Vincent, National Library of Scotland
– 12.50: Wrapping up the morning session: questions / discussion
– 13.00: Lunch

– 14.00: Is it legal/is it right? Presentation by Kristian Jensen, Chairman of CERL
– 14.30: The ethics of collecting and stewardship, including possible unethical or illegal content in existing collections, by Michelle Light, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, and Adrian Edwards, British Library. Followed by group work
– 15.30: Break
– 16.00: The environment in which we operate, relations with the trade, benefactors, other potential buyers: honour and reputation. Presentations by Scot McKendrick, British Library and Bente Granrud, National Library of Norway. Followed by group work
– 16.50: Wrapping up the day: thank you and next steps
– 17.00: End of the event

EVENT INFORMATION

The British Library

  • Location: London - United Kingdom
  • Event date: September 15, 2023

LINKS AND DOWNLOADS