Members of both associations acknowledge privately that the ethics policies can encourage a two-faced system whereby scholars simply go to nonassociation journals and museum publications to publish unprovenanced works.

One example is a 1962 museum publication that refers to its tradition of collecting "outstanding works of arts from those cultures where human expression and art has appeared to reach its greatest level."

The Museum Shop has art books, museum publications, folk art and crafts for sale.

Italian investigators have acknowledged in recent months that museum publications, auction catalogs and even visits to museum galleries have been useful in tracing illicit works.

By 1957, Montagu's 100 cars needed a building of their own "as Palace House was beginning to take on the oily smell of a garage," according to a museum publication.

His recent catalogues are characterized by a detail and scholarship matched by few other museum publications on contemporary artists.

More and more, organizations are offering members the option of waiving certain benefits, like free museum publications, if they would prefer to see the cost of the benefit go directly to the institution.

The results, determined by a technique known as infrared spectroscopy, are reported in the current issue of a museum publication, Research Papers in Science and Archeology.

That property, called Deepdale, was abandoned in 1910 after Mr. Vanderbilt had "run into difficulty acquiring the land needed to assure the privacy he sought," according to a museum publication.

A scholarly catalogue, it is meant to look more like a museum publication than an auction house production, with essays by experts and art historians.