Something like this came up at my place last summer, and it got nasty, but we still have the aritfact. We curate artifacts for the local historical society, who is sort of our "parent" organization. In the 1960's and 70's when their membership was very strong and actively collecting artifacts, they obtained some incredible things. They did not know about using deed of gift form, and the legalities of transfering ownership. They made an inventory of their holdings, and that was that. Last summer a sister (or maybe daughter) of a donor visited the museum and requested the return of her great-grandmother's butter churn. Apparently sister/mom had donated it without consulting our visitor (who would have been all of 5 at the time). She was decorating her house in a rustic style, this churn was the only remaining object of her grandmothers meagre possessions, and she wanted it for her hallway to be an umbrella stand (I kid you not). She even offered to get me one to look "exactly" like it from Wal-Mart or somewhere. Her perception was that as long as the artifacts looked the same, what did it matter that I had a cheap china-made imposter. As an administrator, patience is not one of my virtues, but I tried hard. I explained to her the need to retain the historical integrity of the original artifact collection by not accepting replacements, and (using basic kindergarten reasoning) that if let her do this, word would get out and my collections would be targeted by descendents of all the original donors. That did not satisfy her, and I had to go into the whole policy thing about deed of gift, and ownership. What made it difficult was that my facility does not actually OWN the thing, the historical society does, and they have no documentation, and very loosly organized policies at best to deal with this type of situation. It wound up going before their board of directors, they concurred with me, nicely explained to the lady that she could not have it back, and as far as we were concerned, thatmatter was dropped. But I always wonder about her hard feelings. And what is going to happen when the daughter of the man who gave us a really cool post office unit wants that back to use as a trellis? Lynita Langley-Ware Director, Faulkner County Museum Conway, AR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susannah West" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 2:31 AM Subject: Re: Requests to Rescind Donations > I'm so glad this topic has come up, because it is something that has been > really concerning me lately. We have several items in our collections > that were LOANED, apparently in the early 1960s, which don't have any loan > agreement documentation associated with them as far as anyone knows (or if > there was, it's gone missing). A couple of years ago, a descendant of the > original lender wanted to see these items (which ARE on display, as we have > absolutely no storage space) but wasn't able to as the museum was closed > at the time. I have since tried to contact her, but received no > response. I have a nightmare that she will show up and demand them back. > I brought up this concern to our Board of Directors, and it came as a total > surprise to them that these items were on loan rather than the property of > the Ohio Historical Society. I've queried the Ohio Historical Society, and > have gotten the advice that I should probably "let sleeping dogs lie." But > what happens when the dogs wake up?! > > Susannah West > John Rankin House, Ripley, Ohio > > ========================================================= > 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). ========================================================= 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).