The French Museum Service conducts an annual survey on the acquisitions of territorial museums with the designation «Musée de France», with the objective of disseminating reliable information on their enrichment policy, identify acquisition trends and developments and identify opportunities for improvement.
The objectives of the CSRA national review
The study provides quantitative data on Regional Scientific Commissions for Acquisitions (CSRA) and Permanent Delegations (DP). It gathers data on the participation of museums in France in commissions (number of museums present and absent in CSRA; frequency of passage in CSRA, etc.) and data on acquisitions (number of files examined; number of objects acquired; scientific distribution of files; modes and amounts of acquisitions; number and nature of opinions rendered in CSRA).
Survey Methodology
The census is based on the minutes of the CSRA organised by the regional cultural affairs directorates (DRAC). The data are collected from each DRAC before being consolidated and analysed by the French Museum Service, which provides a summary.
Statistics to be refined
This investigation process, which has been underway for six years, reveals strong and precise trends in procurement. However, since the method of collecting and exploiting data has been improved over the period (harmonisation of reporting formats, automation of calculation methods), the results obtained are not strictly comparable from one year to the next.
Some statistics should be taken with caution, because they reflect less the reality of the acquisition policy of French museums than the visibility of the State services. Thus, knowledge of the national amount of acquisitions remains incomplete for the moment, because the value of the gifts is not systematically communicated by the museums of France to the members of the commissions. Similarly, the SMF and the DRAC are not always the recipients of advance notices of acquisition projects that large departments send to museums in France. Over the course of the investigations, these data are increasingly known and accounted for, thanks to the joint vigilance of all the actors involved in the acquisition process.