Valuing your collection : a practical guide for museums, libraries and archives / Freda Matassa.

This book addresses the issues around valuing objects in cultural collections, ranging from high-value to low or no-value, including practical advice on how to assign values and examples from museums, libraries and archives. There is an increase in lending and borrowing, meaning more loans which require a value for insurance, whilst recent government initiatives such as Lifetime Giving mean that donations to the nation need to have a monetary value for tax purposes. At a time when loans and exhibitions are expanding to all corners of the world, while lenders are becoming more risk-averse, this book addresses the issues and offer some solutions. Content covered includes: definitions of value and consideration of legal aspects; guides to assigning value to individual objects and entire collections; valuation, auctions and dealers; analysis of real life case studies; an explanation of the UK government valuation panel and the findings of the recent EU valuation report. This book addresses museum staff, cultural heritage students, librarians, archivists, private collectors and anyone who needs practical guidance on valuation.