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Re: unopened mail



Mmmm..... I'd say open them.

This is perhaps an appraisal issue.

Technically the contents of these letters do not represent a transaction
between the sender and recipient (because the recipient never read them) and
so the only thing they can really tell us about the creator of the
collection is that s/he got enough mail from strangers that s/he didn't
bother to open some (most?) of it. Nothing that any of these people said in
these letters would have had an effect on the actions of the person to whom
they were addressed. From that point of view you could probably chuck these,
make a note of their one-time existence in a "Note on Arrangement" and let
it go. In fact, it might be very misleading to have the letters themselves
in the collection unless researchers were aware that they were never read.

ON THE OTHER HAND! How could one resist not reading them? Unopened mail from
a bygone era... oooh... the mystery! They might have informational value in
and of themselves and they may be quite interesting.


Jeff


-----Original Message-----
From: Christine Moreland [mailto:cmorelan@LIB.NMSU.EDU]
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 10:39 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: unopened mail


I'm not sure if this question has come up before.  In the collection I am
currently processing we just came across a stack of unopened fan mail.
What have other people done in similar situations?  Do you open or not?

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