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Re: "permanent loan" vs "gift"



Here, here!  One aspect of all of this "gift," vs "loan" trouble is
to look at your institution's earlier documents.  As happened in
Georgia,  when a draft of the Confederate Constitution was taken by
a family member after over 90 years of the museum retaining it.
This document was sold to a private dealer/collector.  Forever lost
to the public.  I have a feeling that most of the time,  your
institution will be ok,
but it doesn't hurt to make sure.

Rather than 'permanent loan' our organisation has a deposit scheme.
In a nutshell, it means the depositor still owns their work - in our
case mostly films - and that they can call it back. However, each
time they call it back they must pay a retrieval fee. (They usually
call it back to make more prints because it is being re-released). If
they keep it for more than 6 months it is assumed they are going to
keep it and we will charge them storage (at the going market rate)
for the whole time we have kept it for them. If they don't take it
back ownership passes to us after 50 years from the date of first
acceptance. There are, of course, details I haven't described and
exceptions etc which may be negotiated/granted but essentially this
is the system. We have used it for the odd manuscript collection or
special costume but most of these types of materials are donated. It
works because depositors feel they still have control over their
material but subsequent family members can't take it back after 90
years!

Cheers, Sue
--

_____________________________________________________________________________

  Sue Terry                      __  /\
                                /  \/  \     Manager, Documentation Development
   +61  2 6248 2180 (w)        /        \    Collections Branch
   +61  2 6286 8336 (h)       /         /    ScreenSound Australia
   +61  2 6248 2165 (fax)     \   __  */     Canberra ACT 2600
                               `-'  \_/
  sueterry@screensound.gov.au

'The secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt' (Rohinton Mistry)
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