Deaccessioning is the formal process by which a museum, library, or archive permanently removes an object or item from its collection. It is the institutional equivalent of deciding to sell, transfer, or destroy a holding — and it is among the most contested decisions in collections management. What It Is Accession means to formally add something to a collection. Deaccession is the reverse: the institution decides that a particular item no longer serves its mission, is redundant, is too costly to preserve, or is better held elsewhere — and removes it from the permanent collection through a defined process.

Provenance, in archival science, refers to the origin of a body of records — specifically, the person, family, organization, or institution that created or accumulated them. It is the foundational principle of archival arrangement and description, and it is distinct from the art world’s use of the same word. What It Is The principle of provenance — known in French as respect des fonds — holds that records from different creators must be kept separate and not intermingled, even if their subject matter overlaps.