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Re: Ethics of Copies



Folks -

There is one essential factor that I think other posts haven't quite covered.

Up here in the Great White North, in Ontario at least, an architect is
responsible for a building so long as it is standing.  If the firms that
donated the drawings are still extant, or there are legitimate successors,
they have responsibility for these buildings.

They also, unless otherwise agreed upon, hold the copyright to the drawings.

Back when the world was young, and I was the Municipal Archivist for
Windsor, we became the official repository for the local chapter of the
Ontario Assoc.of Architects.  We ran into a situation that was ethically
compromising, although we didn't know about it until after the fact.  A
local hospital asked for the kind of copying outlined in the post...all the
drawings concerning all their buildings.  We believed in good faith that
this was a legitimate request, and provided the copies.  As it turned out,
the hospital gave the copies to a competitor of the existing firm that had
done all the work for them.  From that point onward, we made it policy that
the permission of the architectural firm was required for copying purposes.

I would suggest that both issues - responsiblity of architects for their
buildings and copyright to the drawings - provide ample cause for
proceeding with caution.

Cheers!

Mark

At 02:12 PM 31/01/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>I'm hoping that some of you might be able to offer some advice for a
>colleague who is off-list.  He is in a rather delicate position concerning
>use of, and copying from, his manuscript holdings.
>
>He has a large collection of architectural / oversize engineering drawings
>that document a company-built mining town.  A new organization has been
>established to preserve and interpret the history of this town.  This new
>institution has acquired a surprising amount of money, space and staff for
>preservation of historic structures, interpretive programs -- and also to
>develop a museum / archives facility at the site.
>
>The problem is that this new institution has approached my colleague about
>copying large portions of his collection that pertain to buildings still
>standing in the town.  In some cases, they have simply said "we need copies
>of everything about these ten buildings -- copy them and send the invoice
>along."  They claim that they need them to carry out ongoing structure
>rehabilitation work -- which he agrees is a legitimate use of the copies.
>His superiors, however, fear they simply plan to use the copies to build
>their own collection of town-specific archival material.
>
>I've told him about standard professional courtesy in "not depositing
>copies at other institutions," but this is an unusual case where the copies
>will have lasting utility to the new museum.  The drawings were preserved
>because of their evidentiary value -- now there is a primary need for them.
> Yet, on the other hand, he doesn't want to run the risk that the new
>museum's archives will retain the copies and provide reference access as
>part of their "public" collections.  My colleague is within an hour's drive
>of the site.
>
>How does he assist them in their work without undermining the uniqueness of
>his collections?   We keep the stuff so it can be used, right?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Erik Nordberg
>Michigan Tech
>
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A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>