Hello Jessamyn, About a decade ago our museum along with two other local museums combined our libraries to form a Research Center. It has been housed during that time at one of the museums, and a part time staff member has been provided by different financial arrangements. (We started with an IMLS grant that ran for 3 years.) However, because of a number of factors, we have recently signed an MOU with our local university branch to house the collections in a special, non-circulating area on their campus. Our Board made the decision to retain all primary source materials. (We were the only one of the three museums to have any primary source materials in the Research Center, and our photography collection and other primary source materials always remained under the care of our Collections Manager.) Each of the three museums retains ownership of their collections, and any party can remove their collections (or the university can return them) with 90 days notice. If you would like a copy of the MOU, I will be happy to email it to you. Morris Witten Executive Director Taos Historic Museums Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico. ~Lew Wallace (Territorial governor of New Mexico 1878 - 1881) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:31:52 -0500 From: [log in to unmask] Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Giving Up Collections To: [log in to unmask] Hello all. I am posting this for a colleague of mine: Hello All! I work for a young, small very museum with close ties to industry and which is trying to build close ties with a university. We have a small collections, mostly in the way of archival material but it is beginning to grow. It has been suggested by some of my board that it would be in the best interest for the museum to give up our collections to the care of the university's special collections archives. While I am unsure that this is the best approach to take, I am bound to research the matter for them. Does anyone know of any institutions with arrangements like this? Is it advisable for a small history museum to not keep any collections? Is there anyway I might convince my board to rethink this policy? Please reply to the list, I am a member, but prefer to post this anonymously. Thanks. -- Jessamyn ========================================================= 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). _________________________________________________________________ Keep your kids safer online with Windows Live Family Safety. http://www.windowslive.com/family_safety/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_family_safety_072008 ========================================================= 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).