ABSTRACT
This chapter has focuses on philosophical and conceptual issues around the practice of collecting artefacts in order to tell histories of individuals, groups and societies. In museums, the label still often means the keeper of a segment of cultural heritage, for example, archaeology. Collecting might seem at first glance to be a neutral and reactive act but the reality is far more complicated and interesting. The name 'museum' implies that what that institution does is to 'collect the past' but in these three words are several knotty intellectual and practical problems. The professions of academic history, art history and even the practice of natural sciences have been reconceptualised since the 1960s. The chapter summarizes the 'conservation', 'preservation' and 'restoration' should be seen as distinct and separate concepts, each having quite distinct activities and courses of action associated with them. If accessioning is how objects enter permanent collections, disposal and de-accessioning is how they leave.
