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

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "matt Sohn" <mahatma@xxxxxxxx>
> When I worked at the Chicago Museum of Broadcast Communication, we got
> offered a donation from the DeVry tech library of a complete set of SAMS
> repair manuals covering a 30-year period. The Museum wasn't interested,
but
> I took the woman's number, and contacted a number of libraries about
> acquiring them. Some were interested, but had no space or didn't want to
> deal with accessioning them. I ended up picking them up in my VW van (some
> 70 volumes, each one about 6 inches thick) and stored them in my brother's
> basement, hoping I could find a home for them. Eventually my brother got
> tired of all the boxes in his basement, and I had to get rid of them. I
> ended up dumping them at the Audio Technology Center of Columbia College,
> where I was a student, and they were locked away in a spare room. I'm sure
> hardly anyone was even aware that they were there, and a few years ago the
> facility moved to a new space, and I'm sure that the books didn't survive
> the move. I kept two volumes for keepsakes, but I'm sure the rest are
gone.
> These books were full of schematics for every variety of television  set,
> radio and phonograph manufactured between 1948 and 1980,. The pictures of
> the units were beautiful. It's a shame.
I bought the unwanted "old stuff" from a local radio/TV/music store in
my then-home-town of Bloomington, Illinois around 1965. It included a
set of Photofacts from 1946 through 1958 (around #350) and the first
16 volumes of the Rider manuals, along with several other odds & ends
of manuals. I later bought a large box of RCA manuals up here in Canada
which was pretty well complete year dot through 1949 or so. I still have
everything except Volume VI of the Riders (which I need!). There are
advantages to being a "pack rat" at times...

Steven C. Barr