For many years, museum organizations like History Colorado have taken responsibility for holding artifacts in the public trust. Though the objects originate at various points in history, institutions such as ours hold them in trust for the people and places from which they came.

However, sometimes objects fall outside of our mission and have little Colorado significance or storytelling value. The process of reviewing and removing items from our collection is known as deaccessioning. A healthy and necessary practice, deaccessioning allows museums to better care for the collections that have stories to tell, to reduce duplicate items, and to better maintain safe environments for the collections that remain.