ABSTRACT
With large and diverse collections it can be difficult to separate the significant from the mundane. Many museums have collections spanning decades with levels of provenance ranging from detailed portfolios to "drop offs" that made their way into the collection without documentation. Tiering of museum collections is not new. It has existed for years, primarily at living history museums. These museums focus on interpreting a living past, and developed ranking systems that would allow them to use artifacts in interpretive programs. The most important pieces in a collection are pretty easy to rank and collections that don't belong in museum are also easy to list. Although tiering helps make deaccessioning decisions, this method of collection ranking is not in itself a deaccessioning tool. Creating the deaccession field makes it easy to allow anyone working with collections to recommend an item or collection for deaccessioning.
