Stephen, Just a gentle correction here - what you described is archival storage and housing of the newspapers in question - not the conservation of them. It would require a condition survey of the collection by a professional paper conservator to acertain the condition issues and the costs of conservation. When I worked in an institution this was one of the roles of the staff conservators to examine and report on the condition of both prospective collections acquisitions and proposed loans. The long-term preservation costs of a collection is a valid issue for an institution to consider - but it should be based on an actual examination and professional assessment of the items in question - not just on an "impression" or opinion. In re-reading your posting I think that there are a couple of issues here. First, if there is no expressed intent by the collector in writing as to keeping the collection together as a whole, or any expressed intent by the estate executors or owners, then there is no compelling legal reason for the director to take on all of the items. And it is rare these days for many institutions to take on entire large collections as they had in the past - the impact on storage and preservation can overwhelm an institution's resources. Second, it entirely depends on the collections policies of the institution - what their scope of collecting encompasses and what their acquisitions policy is. Third, since some of these documents sound like they might be official records of the city, does the city have an interest here? There could be legal issues involved in official civic records or documents and their transfer (especially privacy issues with city personnel records) - no matter if they came from a private collector. Fourth, wouldn't it make more sense to get funds to microfilm or microfiche the empherma and newspapers for their intellectual and historical content and to let the local preservation community and city take on the storage and preservation of the original newspapers? So, perhaps your cynicism is well-founded as you know the personalities involved. But in looking at this from the outside, as it was presented, there are valid reasons for selecting and acquiring only parts of a large collection. Cheers! Dave David Harvey Artifacts 2930 South Birch Street Denver, CO 80222 303-300-5257 [log in to unmask] ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).