Rare, precious or unique items will likely still be accepted by the North Otago Museum, even though space is no longer available to store them and an 18-month moratorium on collecting is in force.
Museum director Rowan Carroll had said the museum was full and asked the Waitaki District Council's community services committee meeting yesterday for a moratorium until December next year on accepting new items or archive material.
However, some councillors were worried that might mean missing out on exceptional items.
Instead, the committee has recommended a moratorium on "all but the most exceptional" items.
Before councillors made a decision yesterday, they and staff had a tour of the museum and archives.
Ms Carroll showed them how tight space was, along with items that were not stored properly because of the restrictions.
Items could not be properly cared for, breaching professional codes of ethics, she said.
Community services manager Thunes Cloete said the problem would not go away.
A moratorium would help, but the museum would have the same problem in 18 months, he said.
However, by then a redevelopment plan for the museum and Oamaru Library would be completed, which would address the problem, he said.
Cr Peter Garvan said a record needed to be kept of items offered to the museum if they could not be accepted.
However, Cr Kathy Dennison and other councillors were concerned exceptional items could be lost, so put in an exception for those.
Cr Jim Hopkins asked if other space was available if "rare, precious or unique" items were offered.
Dr Cloete said that had been investigated, and suitable space identified in Timaru.
Ms Rowan said the archive was full and the safety of existing collections compromised because of a lack of space.
It could no longer even accept the council's own records, let alone community records.
The archives were established 20 years ago and since then have been cataloguing, housing and making accessible archives, including council records.
