The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) includes a code of ethics as one of the five core documents that it declares "fundamental for basic professional museum operations." AAM states that these documents "embody core museum values and practices." By examining codes of ethics and exploring the principles that they include, this course is a preparation for creating your institution's code.

We will begin by looking at codes of ethics, generally, and answer the following questions: What is a code of ethics? What is the difference between an ethical and a legal issue? Why should museums pay attention to both? Why should each museum have its own code of ethics? How is a code of ethics created – who should be involved and why? What is the difference between discipline specific guidelines and codes and a museum's code of ethics?

After exploring the basic questions about codes of ethics, the course will focus upon each of the main areas of the AAM code: governance, collections and programs. We will examine the ethical principles each of these sections covers and explore key issues that might be of concern to different kinds of museums (i.e., different disciplines).