[Personal_archives] What to do when...

[Pamela Miller]

Dear SISPA members,

We have a similar situation with our Norman Bethune material. I'm attaching the link to our web page and you will see that we have all sorts of "contributions". This pretty well lines up with Amy's experience and suggestions. And of course, Bethune's public and private lives were very controversial but he was wise enough to leave no known descendants, which really helps in privacy issues.

http://osler.library.mcgill.ca/archives/index.php/search/query/

To summarize, if the potential donation is a fonds, it can stand alone. If it is not, it could be considered as part of a collection, in Bethune's case, made up of material from many sources.

Good luck,
Pam


Pamela Miller
History of Medicine Librarian
Osler Library, McGill University
514-398-4475 ext. 09861
fax 514-398-5747 

-----Original Message-----
From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sarah Romkey
Sent: June 22, 2010 8:02 PM
To: personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Personal_archives] What to do when...

Hello SISPA members,

At the section meeting in Halifax, we discussed using the listserv more 
often to ask for opinions, advice, etc. So I'm going to get the ball 
rolling!

One of the discussions at the meeting was about what to do when someone 
offers to donate items to another person's fonds. I've just had such an 
offer today. Assuming that you consider this to be undesirable, how do 
other folks handle this?  This is my current draft response to the offer:

"It is very generous of you to think of us, however we do not as a rule 
add documents to a person's or organizations fonds that did not 
originate with the creator or the original donor, for a variety of 
reasons including privacy and the  provenance of the documents. I do 
thank you very much for the offer."

Privacy is an issue in my mind in this case because the records offered 
would reflect an aspect of this particular creator's life that he never 
chose to contribute to his own fonds.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I'd be very happy to hear them.

Cheers,

Sarah

-- 
Sarah Romkey
Archivist
Rare Books and Special Collections 
University of British Columbia Library
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
1st Floor, 1961 East Mall Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1
604-822-2232 / sarah.romkey at ubc.ca

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