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<DIV>In a message dated 10/31/2008 2:38:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
heather.dean@yale.edu writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Calibri color=#000000 size=2>Good
point, Rick, regarding contracts with donors…my guess is that it's best to get
everything in writing.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>I don't want to monopolize the last day of the discussion, but Heather's
reply -- please forgive Heather if it was unintentional -- suggests that
contracting might not be a commonly required practice. If true, it is
a bad state of affairs. In my opinion (easy for an consultant to say, eh?), this
requirement should be an important element of the ARM policies of any
institution involved in accepting personal collections, if for no other reason
as part of its risk management program. Without clear donor contracts, the
institution opens itself to possible large cans of worms, especially upon death
of the donor, the ultimate certainty of which is also something that should be
addressed in such policies. In one instance that I am personally involved with
at the moment in an advisory capacity, I noticed that some of a collection of
personal archives of a deceased military officer to a university (by one of
his children) to a university that is accepting them includes several papers
that may very well still be classified under national security laws.
Unless/until that matter isn't cleared up, the university could be at
considerable risk legally, grant-fund-wise, etc. It's especially delicate,
because to determine if such papers are still classified, the
university may have to subject them to review by the Department of Defense.
If they are, the university keeps its own skirts clean because the reviewing
authority will not return them, but at the same time the university may
inadvertently subject the surviving child (who wouldn't likely have even thought
about this matter) to legal consequences for possessing them in the first place.
My advice was to return those papers to the donor and ask that they go through
the process of getting the papers declassified before returning them to the
university for repatriation to the collection.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Regards,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Rick </DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV CLASS="aol_ad_footer" ID="83a83770ad05d0898d960e65d54f88f0"><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Plan your next getaway with AOL Travel. <a href="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212416248x1200771803/aol?redir=http://travel.aol.com/discount-travel?ncid=emlcntustrav00000001">Check out Today's Hot 5 Travel Deals!</a></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>