David,
At our archive we will conduct research for patrons who can't make it to the area. In our case we do it for free, but in other places I've worked they've charged by the hour. One of our main goals at the archive is to provide access to our materials and we are open 6 days a week to researchers. I have run across archives that are open by appointment only, usually due to shortages of staff. I've never encountered a place that denied access to a researcher though, at least not in the public realm. Some cooperate archives are not open to the public, as they want tighter controls on their intellectual property.
At my institution we do restrict access to certain collections as a condition set by the donor (ie. they're only open to union members, materials can't be copied out of them, they are closed for 5 years, etc), but we try not to do that if we can. What's the use of an archive if it's not available to the public? We have researcher who come in all the time and go through collections and "find" all sorts of things because they have so much knowledge about a subject and often have the time to invest in really digging through collections. Archivists can't do that or collections would never get processed :)
Erin O'Malley
Exhibit Designer
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From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 11:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] unusual access policy
Good Morning Museguys,
Last week I contacted a South Texas museum that holds the papers of a deceased local historian. The papers probably include some information that I could use for a current project. I talked to the museum director on the phone about arranging a visit so I could review the material. The director told me that the museum has a policy that forbids access to its collections by outside researchers. She offered to have a staff member do the research for an hourly fee. Over the years I have occasionally encountered a museum or archive that charged outside researchers a fee to access its material, and of course many institutions will provide staff to research its collections for a fee as a convenience to outside scholars who for one reason or another do not wish to visit. But I have never before run into an institution that by policy will not allow outside access. But, then, I haven't been all that active the last few decades. So I'd like to know if this type of access (well, non-access) policy is unheard of, becoming common, common, or what. And, does AAM have a best practices policy position, or anything else on access--I wasn't able to find any specifics on the AAM website? Thanks for your help. Happy trails, David
David Haynes [log in to unmask] San Antonio
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