Michael Botwinick, director of the Hudson River Museum and an outspoken supporter of the Brodsky Bill that would have regulated museum deaccessions in New York State, responds to this recent post on the bill’s unfortunate fate in the state legislature:
I think it is problematic to say the bill was killed by the “museum lobby.” I think the vast majority of museums in the state supported the bill, and the vast majority conduct their affairs in accordance with the bill’s principles. I believe that the greatest concern came from the NYC institutions that received their charters from the legislature, predating the State Board of Regents [i.e., those institutions that were chartered before 1889]. Some of younger NYC museums rode on those coattails.
Tom Campbell [director of the Metropolitan Museum] was quite correct to point out the Met more than meets the requirements of the proposed bill. All of the large NYC museums absolutely practice what Brodsky preaches. And from my experience, the prevailing attitude among museums nationally is firmly opposed to deaccessioning for operating expenses.
I can only conclude that the “legacy” museums saw no good reason to allow the Regents any authority over them. Their reservations may not, from their point of view, be misplaced. But the irony is that those reservations have stopped a bill that would have served New York well. The Regents have worked hard to address this issue in a constructive way and spent a great deal of time listening to the profession.
We will, as Brodsky has pointed out, now have a two-tier system in New York, instead of a single standard and that would have been model legislation for other states as well.