Hi-
I have a feeling this topic has been touched on before, but I wasn't coming up with the correct words to find it in the archives, so....
We have scrapbooks and other documents from a national women's organization that deal with their local chapter. Most of these items were donated by individuals, but the donor of record on one collection is the local chapter itself, signed by the president at the time. In the intervening years the organization's by-laws have been modified to say that no items (scrapbooks, yearbooks, certificates, etc.) may be held by a public institution and giving the chapters guidelines for the care and feeding of these items. The by-laws also say that items that have been "placed" in other institutions need to be rescued and returned to where they belong. This means that members of the local chapter are wanting these items back. I don't want to give them back. My argument is that the donations predate the modification of the organizations by-laws, therefore they're mine. The items were given/received in good faith and have been stored and cared in the intervening years. Their argument is that their organization compiled the scrapbooks and that their by-laws say they have to have them.
To make life even more interesting two of the scrpbooks were compiled on ledgers that contained the county's poor rolls. We have been unable to determine how the organization got the ledgers, but our argument is that the ledgers trumps the scrapbook and so their isn't really any negotiating on those. They have to stay here.
So, the big question is, "What do I do next?" How have other institutions handled it when something similar occurred and who won and is it worth the fight vs. the bad publicity. I'm sure I will have other questions before this is all done, but right now my brain is spinning to much to really think what they might be.
Thanks
Nikkie
Nikkie Cooper, Curator
Fort Morgan Museum
P.O. Box 184
Fort Morgan, CO 80701
970-542-4011
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www.ftmorganmus.org
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