Since no one else (at least none who were involved in the original
dust-up) has mentioned it, I felt I should at least bring it up here;
see this link:

https://library.stanford.edu/blogs/stanford-libraries-blog/2015/10/richard-j-howe-mechanical-musical-instrument-literature 

I'm fuzzy on the details, but as I recall, Richard Howe arranged with
the University of Maryland to receive his entire historical holdings
as a bequest, with the expectation that the university would make the
material available to all scholars.  Instead, the university simply
warehoused it, without even bothering to catalog it, and severely
restricted access to the material.  The resultant vituperation within
the mechanical music community was blistering, but in the end the
university prevailed.  And as an alumnus, I was rather dismayed.

So imagine my surprise to learn that the entire bequest will be
transferred to Stanford University's Player Piano Project.  Most
significantly, the link above indicates that Stanford will begin the
cataloging work, apparently with the intent of making the catalog
eventually available on-line.

Marshall Jose