Saying some things that have not already been said

Key Points

Definition of “bookend courier”
Improved care
Standardizing the practice
Reduced courier dependence
Key resources

Depending on insurance, object value, condition, and/or indemnity requirements, hiring third party supervisors to serve as a bookend couriers* may improve care, prove more economical than airfare/hotel/per diem required for traditional couriers, and radically reduce the carbon footprints. For these reasons, I believe we should more widely adopt their use like a baby on the steps of a firestation, sceptical at first but then wholeheartedly.

As I mentioned in the previous article, instead of sending internal staff as couriers to accompany a loan, for example, hire a third-party registrar or a set of professionals at the destination to supervise the arrival, the condition reporting, and the installation. They come with some significant advantages over someone from the outside: they know the companies, facilities, language, and protocols of the area as well as provide a fresh perspective when reviewing the object.

In fact, bookend couriers have the potential to even improve object care by way of specialization: a registrar to supervise airport activities and/or ride on a truck, an object-specific conservator to condition check, and a specialist (if needed) to install the object.

When considering when to send a courier, start with the notion that you send no courier. Depending on the time of year and the location, roughly 60–90% of art and artifacts that travel are 2-dimentional objects that hang on the wall (based on an unofficial survey of shippers I personally know from Europe, Asia, the United States, and Latin America). This means that well more than half of all transportation involves objects that essentially require no special expertise to install. Not all objects travel at great risk and, thus, require courier escorts–especially with improved crates and new technological products that offer information about the shipment en route. As a result, one can safely ship much of their collection without couriers assuming you know that the facilities and staff of the borrowing institution meet your standards. If you do require one, however, I encourage you to consider a bookend courier as your next best option.

Yes, I know that you want to tell me about how a third party does not know the object well and/or they do not know how it is packed or installed… I only propose that we reduce our dependence on couriers and that we consider their use on a case-by-case basis. Also, presumably the “bookend” on the arrival side will review the object after you do and will have the privilige of your insight on which to base their review and supervision. They do not go into the situation blind.

When considering a loan request, assume “no courier” as your default policy and work backwards from there to determine their necessity. In the end, I propose many different levels of supervision (nuance not always apparent in this discussion), from none to full with different versions in between. This stratification requires more elaboration than I will provide here and will feature in my (and collaborators’) presentation for the ICON online conference.

In addition, pro-courier advocates often assume that couriers from the lending institution actually know the objects well. Though, most of us know that in some instances institutions send curators, new employees, or, simply, the only available staff that may not have significant or specialized courier, installation, and/or, conservation experience. Perhaps, if we objectively examine our existing practices, we will discover gaps in the quality of care and seek to fill them with outside professionals that can provide equal, if not better, supervision.

Start by creating standards for lending and make them part of your loan contract to protect you and your insurer from unnecessary risk while also reducing your expenses. For example, decide what your condition report should contain and even provide a format (how it looks on the page and what information it should contain) in order to avoid a wide range of interpretations of the object’s condition. Specify the platform; you should use a digital platform for the sake of sharing and image quality and you should specify which platforms you will accept. Further, specify if you require the use of other digital platforms to document the transit process or the use of environmental trackers inside of crates. Whatever you can do to set a standard, add it to your loan contract. The point is to integrate the use of bookend couriers and related tools into normal, risk-reducing practice. We assume that an institutional employee will maintain a certain standard, now extend that standard to a third party.

Finally, I want to point out that when lenders reduce courier requirements and, consequently, the cost, they promote greater access to their collection. Democratizing access to cultural patrimony seems a worthy biproduct.

I make this case not to completely dissuade courier use or to simply promote bookend couriers but to implore you to analyze each situation on its own (even before the object goes on loan). We must align our goals and resources to the given situation, but collections should not bear the brunt of budget and carbon cuts. We can immensely improve our practices, but so can everyone else in our institutions. If we, as a field, begin to embrace this process we begin to standardize it. Once we stop depending on the unaffordable old ways, we markedly reduce their monetary, environmental, and opportunity costs and begin to understand and reap their benefits.

Let me know in the comments below if you have other solutions or can improve upon mine.