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Re: monetary appraisal



I asked our Department Accounting Officer to reply to your question. Here is what Todd Hauber said:
Tell this person to contact some major universities.  This is very common for them.  As far as governmental accounting standards go, they would not likely apply to the Corning Glass Museum (darnn, I didn't even see any manuscripts when I went there).  The government accounting standards do require donated assets to be valued at fair market value at the time of donation.  That's about the extent of the standards.  As an auditor, we often would see independent appraisals submitted by donors to establish value, at least on big items (doesn't the IRS require appraisals if over $5,000?).  However, staff estimates were also a  common way to establish value for financial reporting.
I hope this helps.
 
Max J. Evans
Director, Utah State Historical Society
(801) 533-3551
mevans@utah.gov
http://history.utah.gov

>>> HatcherRE <HatcherRE@CMOG.ORG> 4/23/02 11:41:10 AM >>>
Hello,

I know this topic has been discussed in general before, but I've searched
the archives and found a limited number of relevant responses.

The position of archivist is new at my institution, and until my arrival,
donations of archival materials were appraised for monetary value by the
library's technical processing staff.  This value was entered into the
acquisitions system for inclusion in the museum's annual report, but NOT
used for tax or insurance purposes.  Since my arrival, this task has been
passed to me, but I'm uncomfortable with it (and haven't done it yet), in
part because I am not a manuscript appraiser, but more importantly because
it seems unethical and potentially illegal to appraise one's own material,
even if taxes and insurance are not involved.  I have tried to end the
practice, but have not yet succeeded.

So, my question are:

Do any of you ever assign a monetary value to a collection for internal or
departmental reasons?

If so, how do you determine value?  (I've already found the messages in the
listserv archives which list values for different kinds of
items--manuscripts, newspapers, pamphlets, etc, or per page of a collection.
Does anyone use a different method?)

If not, has it ever been considered?  Why was it rejected?  (I'd love to
convince the director that I shouldn't have to do this either.)

Do your annual reports include the value of that year's acquisitions, and
how do you arrive at that figure?

Thanks so much for your help.

I'll summarize helpful responses for the list.

Rebecca

Rebecca Hatcher, Archivist
Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass
5 Museum Way
Corning, NY 14830
(607) 974-8099
HatcherRE@cmog.org

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