On Thu, 4 Apr 1996, Christine Fogarty wrote:
>
> . . .   Where does "public trust" fit into this
> setting? How often should borrowers touch bases with their lenders in
> extended loans?  Lastly, when a museum has borrowed object for more than 20
> years (assuming that the owner is not keeping good documentation of the
> loan), does that museum have a right to terminate the owner's rights to the
> object and gain its title?
>
Eegads!!  Museums only have the right to terminate the owner's rights if
they follow due process of law.  Indiana has had abandoned property/long
term loan
legislation since 1989, and we've used it twice at The Children's Museum
to obtain title to "permanent loans" left with the museum since the
1920s.  Even after following the letter of the law, I lose a little sleep
over whether some long-lost relative of a past lender will show up at our
door and demand Aunt Hattie's grandfather clock, waving an old "permanent
loan" contract!
California's long term loan/abandoned property law was the basis for the
Indiana legislation, as well as Iowa's and Arizona's laws.
Please, if you can, let the folks at this university know what they are
considering is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous--unless they can use the
California legislation to gain title to those objects!

Robin Lipp
Collections Manager
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis