ABSTRACT

Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) has been a leader in establishing standards for the use and care of historically appropriate plants and animals at living history sites. Collection policies set forth an institution’s procedures for acquisition, registration, documentation, storage, care, loaning, and deaccessioning of collections. Consequently, a collections policy for living plants and animals needs to address each of these areas. The most important parts of a living collections policy define the purposes of plant and animal collections, determine the responsible parties within the institution who will carry out the policy, enumerate the necessary procedures, and set out the conservation practices that will be followed. A good example of a living collections policy is the one developed by Old Sturbridge Village (OSV) in 1987. The OSV policy begins with a broad definition of the living collections as the “plant material and livestock breeds which are maintained within the agricultural and horticultural programs.”