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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