RE: Murky waters

Hi Heather I think the thing to emphasise to everyone involved is that both the County and the Historical Society's mission is to work for the benefit of the Community and that what they are doing is working in partnership in order to provide archive and museum and other heritage services for the local community. Rather than seeing it as the County spending tax payers' money to support a private organisation I would say that every penny the Historical Society spends and every hour of volunteer time is helping to keep the County's taxes lower by achieving the County's economic and social aims by other means. Trevor Reynolds Collections Registrar English Heritage, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138 Holborn, London EC1N 2ST Telephone +44 (0)20 7973 3482 -----Original Message----- From: Museum discussion list on behalf of Heather McClenahan Sent: Thu 08/11/2007 17:54 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Murky waters Listers, We are looking for some advice and help for what we hope is not a unique situation. We are a small historical society that is under contract with the county government to run a museum and archives (the contract covers less than 1/3 of the society's operating budget). The collection belongs to us but is housed in county-owned buildings. Because of space and environmental issues, there is some discussion about building a new archival facility. Some on our board and in the community are questioning whether the county should be building a new facility for what is essentially a private organization. Others argue the county has a responsibility to support the culture and history of the community. Has anyone else been through anything like this before? Your advice, thoughts, and comments are appreciated, on or off list. As a bit of background, our collection and archives contain a great deal of town-related matter like civic club records, county planning documents, and school planning reports. The county does not have a facility for archiving its own records, and there is some discussion about making the new facility for both county records and historical archives. Thanks in advance for your help! Heather McClenahan, museum assistant/web master Los Alamos Historical Society http://www.losalamoshistory.org [log in to unmask] PO Box 43 1921 Juniper St. Los Alamos, NM 875444 505-662-6272 (office) 505-470-2912 (cell) ========================================================= 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).

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