While revising our collections policy for our musuem library and archive, which serves as a local and family history library we have developed a question involving the ethics of personal collecting by the staff. The library may include in its collecting universe works relating to American material, intellectual and popular culture and social history. Since such works are commonly found in our personal collections, (our librarian is an active genealogist, I am actively researching American agricultural history, and American architecture) how should we view the development of our personal reference collections? The museum, unlike university libraries does not have the funds to aquire works to support our researches. It seems foolish that such collecting should be proscibed for such interests are at the heart of our involvment in the field.. Yet AAM guidelines could be read to say we are unethical. Help! Greg Koos McLean County Historical Society Bloomington Il [log in to unmask]