When conducting an inventory or dealing with day-to-day collections tasks, museum and archive professionals may “discover” objects, whose loan terms have expired. These old loans might reflect an agreement left in the museum’s care for long periods of time but neither reclaimed nor returned or they may serve as evidence of institutional loans with entities that no longer exist. Other situations give rise to the instances when loans have not, or in fact, cannot be resolved.

Museum professionals must thoughtfully and carefully deal with the issues associated with the resolution of old loans. There are many issues that arise from having little or no information about an object, chief among them being ownership questions. When outstanding loans to the museum are discovered (in some cases, dating back over a century), what are the next steps? How does one locate the present owners when the original lender has been deceased for decades? Should the “found in collections” (i.e., FIC) objects be converted to museum property? This focus of this issue of Collections aims to explore these issues and questions and seeks papers that address methodologies, best practices, legal guidelines, and documentation regarding this critical issue of loan resolution.

Museum and archives professionals are encouraged to submit articles, opinion pieces, and essays that address the following questions, among others:
• Should a “found in collection” object automatically be treated as a potential loan without documentation?
• How have lending policies at your institution changed through the years?
• What are some ways to protect your institution from having this happen in the future?
• Examples of exceptional detective work in locating lost loan documentation and location of heirs leading to return or donation of desired objects
• When do you know that you have the legal agreement of all heirs -- for example, is the FIC resolved when an attorney or judge says so?
• What is the best methodology for resolving outdated loans from individuals and/or institutions?
• What are best practices to track progress of loan resolution?
• Are there museum loan resolution laws in your region that may be used as standards for others?
• What are some funding sources for inventory or loan resolution projects?

Information on the journal may be found online:
http://journals.rowman.com

Guest Edited by Greg Lambousy, Director of Collections, Louisiana State Museum and Katie Hall, Curator of Decorative Arts, Louisiana State Museum