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Re: restricted collections



Someone wrote me the following:

"Question about your question - who put the restrictions on the
collection?  The donor?  A government agency?  Do you have a
right to restrict what's in the collection?  I mean, it's not medical
records - though I certainly am not questioning the value of the
original materials - so what's your legal leg to stand on, so to
speak, in restricting the information?"

Good questions.  Actually we imposed it ourselves, not knowing if
we did have a leg to stand on.  There is no specific restriction in
the Deed of Gift, and as I said, the donor is long deceased.   I
guess a summer working on archeological surveys for the BLM
(and seeing too many vandalized petroglyph panels) made me
sensitive about it, so when we picked it up and realized what was
in it, I thought that this was a powder keg.  And as I mentioned, go
to a local BLM or NPS land manager and ask them how to find
such and such rare petroglyph and see how far you get; they
obviously have some statutory authority to tell you to buzz off.
However, someone else sent me the following (and thanks very
much to you!):

BEGIN TEXT

"The infomation about the petroglyphs is protected under the
Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, Section 470hh.
Confidentiality of information concerning nature and location of
archaeological resources

(a) Disclosure of information
Information concerning the nature and location of any archaeological
resource for which the excavation or removal requires a permit or
other permission under this chapter or under any other provision of
Federal law may not be made available to the public under
subchapter II of chapter 5 of title 5 or under any other provision of
law unless the Federal land manager concerned determines that
such disclosure would -

(1) further the purposes of this chapter or the Act of June 27, 1960
(16 U.S.C. 469-469c) (16 U.S.C. 469-469c-1), and

(2) not create a risk of harm to such resources or to the site at
which such resources are located.

(b) Request for disclosure by Governors
Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) of this section,
upon the written request of the Governor of any State, which
request shall state -

(1) the specific site or area for which information is sought,

(2) the purpose for which such information is sought,

(3) a commitment by the Governor to adequately protect the
confidentiality of such information to protect the resource from
commercial exploitation, the Federal land manager concerned shall
provide to the Governor information concerning the nature and
location of archaeological resources within the State of the
requesting Governor."

END TEXT

I agree with Dean, again, that this really goes against the grain of
libraries and archivists; we are in the business of dispensing
information, not restricting it.  Old Della Dye, the Manuscripts
Librarian when we got this--RIP her cold soul and gimlet eye--had
no problem giving people her evil eye and telling them to their face
that they weren't "serious researchers" and therefore couldn't see
the collection, but I'm not about to do that.  Dean's suggestion, as
well as other similar suggestions, that we make available the
photos themselves but not the directions, are what course I think
we'll have to pursue.  However, the problem is that the collection is
in the form of albums with the photo pasted onto a page, with the
directions typed on the same page.  I'm working with the GovDocs
librarian right now to find that chapter and verse quoted above, so
that we can use it in a policy.   "If you don't like it, write the
Governor!"  Seriously, I'm going to type the U.S.C. citation out and
stick it in each of the boxes.

We've had the same thing as Dean mentions; we tell people they
can't photocopy it, so they sit down and write it out.  A guy was in
last week and got all upset that he couldn't photocopy it, even
though we told him he could copy them down by hand.  Hard to
figure,









Roy Webb, C.A.
Multimedia Archivist
Special Collections
J. Willard Marriott Library
295 South 1500 East
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah   84112
(801) 585-3073  //  fax (801) 585-3976
rwebb@library.utah.edu

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