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Re: long-winded liability question
Title: Message
The
"liability" on materials being removed from the archives for processing
is one of practicality and safety rather than legal or monetary in this
case. There is always danger of losing portions of the
collection, or of some unforeseen disaster striking (the dog ate my papers,
the cat thougth there was a mouse under them, my stove caught on fire and my
house burned down). Liability here would be loss of materials
that can not be reproduced because the originators are no longer
living.
One
"horror" story with a happy ending from my own archives involved an elderly
woman who borrowed the register from her church to look up some of her
ancestors. She became ill and had to move to Florida. Fortunately,
when her daughter was cleaning out her apartment, she found the
register and gave it to her mother's friend (of a different denomination)
to return to the Episcopal archives. I, in turn, returned it to the
church. Another incident was a matter of someone finding a
minute book from one church behind the furnace in another and turning it in to
the archives.
However, if my archives is any testament, we have a lot of registers that
were borrowed over the years from churches now closed that were never
returned. One of the first rules I learned was never to take
materials from the archives offsite. The only time I ever have set
that rule aside was when the historian of Trinity Cathedral was writing
their history. She was, at that time, 89 years old and very
frail. It was difficult for her to come into the Cathedral to work
and her computer was at home. The Dean of the Cathedral agreed
to sign a loan agreement assuming full responsibility should anything
happen to the materials.
Lynne F. Wohleber
Archivist
Episcopal Diocese of
Pittsburgh
325 Oliver Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
412-281-4928
x138
FAX 412-471-5591
wohleber@pgh.anglican.org
----Original Message-----
From: Dianne Johnson
[mailto:dyjohnso@WFUBMC.EDU]
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 10:49
AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: long-winded
liability question
Considering myself
new to this profession, I have a question. We have a former archivist who
is interested in processing collections to help bring down the huge back log we
have at this academic medical institution. While we (me, the other archivist and
library director) think this might be a good idea because she is trained and
used to work here, we do have a question.
First, space is at a
premium here and the archivist would like to take part of some collections home
to process them since the space she does have is small and being shared with a
librarian.
Second, the specific
collection we have in mind for her to process was donated with no restrictions
to the Archives and the creators' literary rights were transfered to the
Archives with no restrictions. Both the creators, husband and wife team, have
died.
What is the
liability, if any, is there in her taking papers home to process
them?
Thanks in
advance,
Dianne