Re: [ARSCLIST] Curatorial Responsibility, formerly Copyright of treasures

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Richard L. Hess" wrote:

> At 11:27 AM 10/6/2005, Karl Miller wrote:
>
> >A notion which is increasingly having institutions refuse to accept
> >collections that come without endowments to cover the preservation
> >costs... Plus, as we have read in the pages of the NY Times, museums and
> >such compromising the trust of donors, and the public by selling off
> >materials...in the name of keeping the museum, archive...etc. functioning.
> >
>
> What about the sell-off and destruction of many of the runs of old
> newspapers that Nicholson Baker documents in "Double Fold"? Including
> a set of a major NY Newspaper that had been presented by the publisher.
>
> I recently purchased a 3-volume set of the monumental 20-year-old
> Atlas of Canadian History produced by Univ of Toronto.
>
> I was saddened to see that Vol 1 was a de-accessioned library copy
> from a high school in Canada. Wouldn't you think that the high school
> would want this on hand as a reference book. My brother-in-law (book
> lover and Ph.D. in history) was saddened to see that Vol 3 was a
> presentation copy to someone. Vol 2 although purchased used, appeared
> to be new-old-stock.
>
> So now I have the 3-volume set at the new cost of the abridged
> one-volume version, or 1/3 the cost of a new set of the 3-volume set.
> But WHY are libraries dumping this stuff? With something of this
> nature, even if people don't look at it, I would think it would be
> their fond hope that someone would take the initiative to read it.
> Now if I can only get my kids to read it instead of watching animations on TV.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard

A couple of years ago I stopped in at the Port Union library branch to look at
their fifty-cent table and what did I find but a signed copy of Halina Rodzinski's
book. No idea how it would have ended up there in the first place..probably a
donation. (It went to Dave Canfield since I already had a copy.)

dl