William P. Scott wrote:
>
> We use the Standard facility report developed by the RC-AAM.  I heard that
> it has been recently updated, but do not have the new form yet--I'm sure
> that it is just as detailed.
>
> I have heard complaints that the standard report is "too much" for a
> borrowing institution to fill out. . . . .  [snip]

I'm not our registrar, and certainly am not speaking official policy.
But I've worked with the standard AAM form, and have some personal
observations to make.

Yes, it's very long and very detailed.  But I think anyone with any
experience will realize what parts of it are and are not essential.  My
experience from when we've been the lending institution is that the
critical issues are the ones you'd expect.  What's their security
situation?  What about environmental control?  And access to the
objects?  What sort of a building is it?  And so on.  These are the
important questions.  Certainly no loan is likely to be denied because
the smoke detectors are spaced six inches too far apart.

Second, often getting the "right" answer to a particular question may be
less important than just HAVING an answer.  If you can show by your
responses that you're aware of the issues and have considered them, that
can be reassuring, even if a lot of your answers are "no" or "N/A".

But is it TOO long?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  Is that good or bad?  Same
answer.  A few years ago I went to a workshop held at the Missouri
Historical Society museum in St. Louis.  The pride of their collection
is the Charles Lindbergh holdings, including the flight suit he wore on
his historic solo trans-Atlantic flight.  They got a request once to
borrow the suit from a guy who just wanted to impress the guests at his
wife's surprise birthday party.  The AAM form took care of that.

On the other hand, last year we loaned some objects to a city sponsored
exhibit celebrating the centennial of jazz great Sidney Bechet.  I had
to ask the city attorney who was helping to organize it to deal with the
AAM form, and was rather apologetic about its size.  Ha.  He didn't bat
an eye.  Apparently, to a lawyer, a twenty page form is a walk in the
park.

So it all depends.
--
Steve Teeter, Jazz Curator
Louisiana State Museum, (504)568-6968
[log in to unmask]
http://www.crt.state.la.us/crt/museum/lsmnet3.htm