Several readers have recently posted on donating a collection
to a museum.  As a former curator -- not in a museum but in the
National Library of Scotland (a museum of books) -- I felt obliged
to shed some light on this thorny subject.

My experience at my own library and in other institutions is that
in these days when money for staff, buildings and maintenance is
extremely limited, staff have to operate priority systems whereby
some material has to be set aside for cataloguing and display at a
later date.

My library was founded in 1682 (over 300 years old).  In its early
days there the governing body was far-sighted in putting up money to
buy important collections as they came on the market but providing
funding for staff to catalogue some of these collections was a
different matter.  Thus a collection of 18th and 19th century German
university theses was deemed of little value and only catalogued in
recent years when someone realised how unique and important this
collection was.

One of my responsibilities was negotiating with potential donors.
It was always important to find out if the donor wished to impose
any conditions and explain what conditions the library would impose.
In an ideal world most curators/librarians would like to be more
helpful, but sadly the decline in staff numbers inevitably has a
serious knock-on effect on the ability of staff to carry out all
duties as the public expects.  In the United Kingdom this situation
looks set to continue for the foreseeable future -- and beyond.

Peter Wellburn