Carolina Miranda has a column in the LA Times on the (now paused) Baltimore Museum of Art deaccessioning plan. It's of the "the goal was absolutely commendable" but "the methods used to achieve that worthy goal were questionable" genre.
One thing caught my eye, and I'm not sure how much (if anything) to read into it. Instead of saying that the works owned by museums are "held in the public trust," as is typical, she writes:
"A museum’s collection is held in the public interest — think of it as a shared cultural resource — and shouldn’t be treated as an asset. Selling off works to make operational changes dips into that resource — in this case, without first reassessing budget priorities or pressing wealthy benefactors to pitch in."
