What Happens When a Museum Does not Have Ownership of Abandoned Collections?

A Google search will point you towards statutes that assume there is some type of documentation indicating who owned the collection or has ties to the property where the collection was found. However, what happens when the documentation is expired? Or if there is some documentation, what if it is not what the museum needs in order to display or house collections from federal land. This is often the case at many Minnesota museums, but statutes do not specifically say what steps to take in this situation. As a result, museums are left with a collection that they cannot use and often have no time to figure out who the collection belongs to based on what little information they may have. The main problem that will be addressed is the lack of actual documented loan or donation agreements on record between government recognized parcel owners since this is where the problem has shown itself the most. As part of this project, time will be spent to determine all the information possible about abandoned collections from the Museum of Anthropology at Minnesota State University, Mankato in order to contact a potential owner or relative to ask what they want to be done with the collection. Once this process has been completed multiple times, the hope is that a standard set of procedures can be created that will aid museums with any possible issues they may run into in their efforts to get documentation for their abandoned collections