Re: Duplicate Book Sales

[Blksnbks@panix.com]

Judy Turner raises some very valid issues concerning donated collections in 
these "fiscally challenged times" and she certainly has brought to our attention 
one fact that none of us should forget: We are not living in the age of Morgan 
or Getty where grand collections included equally grand or grander endowments. 

However, Judy Turner does not take into account the donor's feelings. Most
collectors build their collections as a mirror to their personalities, 
intellect, and interests. I can well understand why they would want to either 
keep their collections intact or dispose of them entirely. To sell off bits and 
pieces of any collection robs that collection (and the collector) of his/her 
identity. An auction catalgue, which is only partially transient, does not. 
Neither does a bookseller's catalogue if it is properly done and properly 
acknowledges with appropriate essays the identity and interests and aims of the 
collector.

However, why limit our discussion to donations or donated collections? As a 
bookseller I have come across many many situations where a new librarian decides 
to emphasize a new interest (sometimes personal sometimes not) and thus ignores 
or conveniently forgets the previous areas of concentration. Is it less of an 
injustice to a donor or to the donated collection that it is suddenly relegated 
to the back rooms and ignored? 

Wouldn't it be nice if libraries and librarians and collectors and booksellers 
knew exactly what the future holds? What the eventual fate of all their work 
would be? In the meanwhile it should be some comfort to the collector that both 
the bookseller and the auction house would be more than willing and happy to buy 
or handle their collections until such time as more libraries can afford to 
accept donations.

Gee, once again I feel like a hero and not just a bookseller.<g>


On Mon, 22 Apr 1996, Judy Turner <jat@mpm1.mpm.edu> wrote:
>
>While donors can certainly stipulate that a collection be kept together
>as a collection, my response in these fiscally challenged times would be
>to request an endowment, along with the items, to support such an 
>undertaking.  
>
>Keeping a collection intact is interesting from the point of view of
>looking at the interests, tastes and connoiseurship of an individual
>collector, and perhaps, as a reflection of the period of time in which the
>person collected. But, can we really afford to build such monuments to
>collectors given the finite resources of time, space and money available?
>
>How many duplicates, or copies of inferior examples, or reprints or
>subsequent editions does it make sense for us to process, catalog and
>store, particularly if the main purpose is to honor a collector's wishes?
>
>Question - when you agree to accept an entire collection and maintain it
>as such, do you physically segregate such a collection from other
>materials in your library or repository, much as an archival collection, or
>do you integrate it with other materials on the subject?  We've tried both
>approaches when we've accepted collections of scientific and scholarly
>reprints from retiring curators and find pluses and minuses to both.
>
>We do not accept donations for the purpose of selling them.  If memory
>serves me correctly, IRS guidelines require that we keep the material for
>at least three years and we just don't have that kind of space.  Our
>collections policy requires that any funds generated by the sale of
>library collections be used for library acquisitions.  We contact donors
>and offer to return unwanted duplicates and out of scope material or
>we request their okay to donate them to another local institution whose 
>collection policy encompasses the subject matter. It's so much simpler
>this way and seems to result in decent donor relations, so far at least.
>
>Judy Turner
>Director, Library and Archives
>Milwaukee Public Museum
>
>
>