I’ve been pondering Deb’s message.   First, I’m don’t agree that these are public records.  That’s an interesting question as our university attorney made the statement to me that when we get a donation to Special Collections (family papers, etc.), they are now public records because state law defines public records are those materials created and used by an agency in its day-to-day business.   Her point was that if our business is documenting and providing reference material, everything we have is public record.

However, we do have a clause in the Public Records Law that points to agreements and copyright in archival collections so I was able to highlight that for her. 

 

Looking at this a different way, say the investigation was about Marilyn Monroe and you contacted me, a photographer, who had taken pictures of Marilyn (with signed agreements about modeling, use, etc.), and

the investigator said “can I have a picture of Marilyn” and “I said sure.”   By doing that, I was not granting permission for continual reproduction, sale, transferring copyright, etc.   So yes, I think the attorney in this Bundy case could be correct, they’re not public and you shouldn’t be handing out photocopies (reproductions) on request.     Transferring the older files to the Archives does not, in my opinion, change the status to public records either.     Just because the photographs came into the hands of the investigators did not make them public records.   

 

The investigator’s exchange that Deb cites does not answer the questions either.   The investigator told the person who shared the pictures that they’d be used for witnesses to identify Bundy – NOT that they’d become owned by the Department, become public records, etc.     It seems to me that the Department should simply have copied the pictures, returning the originals to the owner, and marking the Department copies are not to be reproduced.    That way the file record remained intact.

 

I’d be interested in other opinions.

 

Dean