In compiling the list of regular sources, ranked by the number of acquisition events in which they were involved, it became clear that certain types of individuals featured fairly near the top of the list. One grouping was of those such as Balfour, Blackwood and E.B. Tylor who were personally involved in the institution either as staff, students or volunteers. Another is of institutions such as the University Museum and Ashmolean Museum which were been corporately linked to the Pitt Rivers through the University of Oxford. A third is of dealers who are known to have sold material to the museum. Because of this observation it was hypothesised that more regular sources of material would also show a higher proportion of forms of exchange other than straightforward donation. This entailed identifying all sales, loans and exchanges of English material that formed part of the acquisition events already identified.
Table 3 shows a comparison of the proportions of acquisition events made up from donations, purchases, exchanges, loans and transfers respectively. For all acquisition events, donations make up around 77%, but this figure is over 80% for acquisition events involving sources of material for one event only, whether of single or multiple objects. Interestingly it is nearly 85% for sources of material involved in between two and five acquisition events. The figures that stand out relate to the 36 sources involved in six or more acquisition events (just over 4% of the 797 sources of English material). For these, donation makes up between just 60 and 66% of events, depending on whether Henry Balfour is included or not.
Sample |
Number of Sources |
Donations |
Purchases |
Exchanges |
Loan |
Transfer |
||||||
|
All Events |
796 |
100% |
77.0% |
1,166 |
17.0% |
257 |
0.8% |
12 |
3.5% |
53 |
1.8% |
27 |
|
Single Object Events |
309 |
39% |
82.9% |
256 |
15.5% |
48 |
0.3% |
1 |
1.0% |
3 |
0.3% |
1 |
|
Multiple Object Events |
487 |
61% |
75.8% |
911 |
17.4% |
209 |
0.8% |
9 |
4.0% |
48 |
2.1% |
25 |
|
Single Events |
600 |
75% |
81.2% |
487 |
16.5% |
99 |
0.2% |
1 |
1.5% |
9 |
0.7% |
4 |
|
Multiple Events |
196 |
25% |
74.6% |
680 |
17.3% |
158 |
1.0% |
9 |
4.6% |
42 |
2.4% |
22 |
|
Multiple Events <5 |
160 |
20% |
84.8% |
357 |
11.6% |
49 |
1.0% |
4 |
0.7% |
3 |
1.9% |
8 |
|
Multiple Events >5 |
36 |
4.5% |
65.9% |
323 |
22.2% |
109 |
1.0% |
5 |
7.7% |
39 |
2.9% |
14 |
|
Multiple Events >5 without Balfour |
35 |
4.4% |
60.4% |
233 |
28.2% |
109 |
1.3% |
5 |
6.5% |
25 |
3.6% |
14 |