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microfiche the empherma and newspapers for their intellectual and historical content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
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