Review by Joyce L. Hagen of the book A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections [Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution press, 1985, 351 p.].

While museums may share many legal and business concerns with other nonprofit organizations, questions surrounding the management of collections are unique to the museum setting. Growing public participation and scrutiny combined with increasing litigation in this area have prompted administrators, trustees and lawyers to search for a source of sound collection management principles. In A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections, Marie C. Malaro presents a preventative medicine approach to protecting and preserving museum collections. The book provides a plan for avoiding collection-related legal and managerial problems through thoughtful preparation and foresight. Malaro advocates a written collection management policy as a means to sound decisionmaking by administrators and advisors in areas such as accessioning, deaccessioning, loans and gifts.

This primer provides ammunition to attack the ignorance is bliss attitude of some organizations. A fine guide for administrators and trustees in the area of collection policy, a strong starting point for research and understanding of museum law, and an antidote to trustee and officer anxiety, A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections arms the reader with appropriate tactics for managing museums of the future with forethought and caution.