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
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