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Re: Arming America



Actually, what I am very curious about in this whole debate is not Michael
Bellesiles book, but the Contra Costa County History Center's disclosure on
their website http://www.cocohistory.com/ccchs-sf.html of Mr. Bellesiles'
visits or lack of visits and what he was there researching.

I am very curious about this privacy issue and what others might think. The
other day a patron came to me very disturbed. He had written a dissertation
and the library catalog showed it was checked out. He was very cross with our
circulation department for not telling him who checked it out. When i
explained that it was an issue of privacy, he exploded, "But i am the author,
i have a right to know!" We see issues like this pop up in the media all the
time, such as a certain book store refusing to give up a list of books
recently purchased by Monica Lewinsky when that whole scandal was going on.

Now the Contra Costa County History Center was really put on the spot and hit
out of the blue with this whole issue, but should we be disclosing a
researcher's information? Is this a special case? A library certainly would
not have told you whether Bellesiles had checked out a book and what date.

Our archives would have to respond to any inquiry of this nature with an,
"I'm sorry, but that is confidental information." However, interestingly
enough, almost every archive I have worked in or visited has kept a logbook
that someone sneaky could look through to see if someone had visited.

I would be very interested in knowing what others think of this situation or
what the policy of your archives might be.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Althea E. Bernheim
Archivist
Milbank Memorial Library
Teachers College, Columbia University
525 West 120th Street, Box 121
New York, New York 10027-6696
Phone: (212) 678-8415   Fax: (212) 678-3092
E-mail: althea@edunet.tc.columbia.edu
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

 -----Original Message-----
From: Charles V. Mutschler [mailto:cmutschler@MAIL.EWU.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 3:25 PM
To: althea bernheim; ARCHIVES
Subject: Arming America



Have any of the archivists out there in the ether been keeping up with
the developing discussion over the Michael Bellesiles book, *Arming
America,* and the way archives and archivists have been involved in
scholarship and the criticism of scholarship?  I confess, I find it
rather curious that no one on this list has even mentioned this case,
though archivists have been important participants in the growing
criticism of the book.  For example, the Contra Costa County History
Center has discussed the matter on its web site.

Charlie
Charles V. Mutschler, Ph.D.
University Archivist
Eastern Washington University.
 -30-

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