The Brockville Museum depends on the generous support of individuals and businesses for the donation of objects of relating to Brockville's history to its collection. Please review our Collection Policy (click here) for details on the types of objects we collection, including current collecting priorities.
PLEASE NOTE: Potential donors must contact the Registrar (613-342-4397 ext 6226 or museum@brockville.com) to discuss potential donations before attempting to drop anything off at the museum.
- The receiving of donations will be by appointment only
- We cannot accommodate walk-ins to drop off object donations
- Donors will be emailed the temporary deposit form to be completed and emailed back before their appointment
Process for offering an object to the museum:
- contact the museum Registrar by email or phone (613-342-4397 ext 6226) to discuss alignment with collecting mandate (details below)
- fill out the temporary deposit form with as much information as possible about the object(s) and return to the Registrar by email or mail (5 Henry St. Brockville)
- the Registrar will take the information to the Collection Committee for review against our collecting mandate and priorities; the Committee will make a decision (note that the next Collection Committee will be December 2023)
- after the Collection Committee meeting (please allow up to three weeks), the Registrar will get back to all potential donors with the committee's decision
- if your object offer was accepted, you will be able to make an appointment with the Registrar to drop off the object(s) along with deed of gift form
Collecting the Pandemic Campaign
The Brockville Museum’s mandate is to capture Brockville stories. As we are currently living through a major event in history, we have the responsibility to record these events for future generations. We are reaching out to the community to gather local stories and accounts of everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We invite all local residents and business owners to be a part of history!
Local Residents: complete our online questionnaire to share your experience, or submit a narrative based on the guidelines outlined here (opens pdf).
Local Business Owners: complete our online questionnaire, or download the questions (.pdf) and email (or mail) us your answers.
If you have any questions about our Collecting the Pandemic Campaign, please email museum@brockville.com with the subject line: "Collecting the Pandemic".
Please note that at this time we are not accepting physical objects as part of this campaign for safety reasons, however, we do expect to make an appeal of this nature in the future... so hang on to those COVID-19 related objects!
How we make decisions about what we accept into the collection:
The museum’s volunteer collection committee makes decisions with regards to accepting objects into the collection based on the museum’s Collection Policy. The committee considers:
- how well the object meets the museum’s mandate
- the use of the object
- the history (provenance) of the object
- the object’s condition
- does the object already exist within the museum’s collection
The committee relies on the information provided by the donor in order to make an informed decision. Some of the reasons an item may be declined include:
- the object is outside of the museum’s scope (in our case, not connected to Brockville)
- it is a duplicate of something already in our collection
- poor condition
- size - the museum's physical capacity must be taken into consideration
- "conditional gift" and "permanent loans" - the Brockville Museum avoids objects donated with "conditions"
If you are considering donating an object to the museum, please email the museum with a photo of the object and as much information as possible before making an appointment. If the Registrar thinks the item might be accepted by the Collections Committee you will be asked to fill out a temporary receipt form (which you may download as a PDF here). Please pay special attention to the questions on the second page of the form.
Once the collection committee has met you will be notified of their decision. Should the object not be accepted there are a number of other options available to you.
