Richard Lacayo is a one-man deaccessioning beat today. Over at his blog, he looks at Thomas Jefferson University's latest Eakins sale, pointing out that "though the American Association of Museums has guidelines that discourage deaccessioning for the purpose of funneling money into a school's general revenues, as Jefferson is doing with the millions from its Eakins sales, Jefferson does not actually have a campus museum, at least not in the way that, say, Yale, Harvard or Fisk all do. Much of its collection consists of portraits of distinguished faculty hung in various hallways. (In 1982, the school's three canvases by Eakins were moved to their own gallery, however, along a with a few other pieces.)"
And in the issue of Time magazine that hits newstands tomorrow, he has a really interesting piece entitled "The Impermanent Collection" which covers all the recent deaccessioning controversies.
