Hi folks,

A topic touched on here from time to time involves us as individuals and our amassed collections. At some point, as we face mortality, we can't take our stuff with us, and we want it to go to a good home.

So, a question-how does one assess the long-term viability of a potential recipient of our collected stuff? If I care about my stuff (which I do), how do I determine if an entity will be around 50/100+ years from now (assuming that my stuff matters as such)? In other words, how would you assess whether an entity is 'worthy' of a donation (yes, assuming they even want my stuff)?

Apologies if that's been beaten to death here before; my cursory search was not successful.

TIA

I don't have any railroad stuff that've collected but I do have a collection of scale and toy trains that I'll either sell off in one way or another, eBay or consignment for example, or donate before I croak. I wouldn't expect my heirs to know what they're looking at or what to do with it. Come to think of it, I should start doing some research and begin thinning it out sooner rather than later. Books can go to our local library or their "friends of" group for resale. They're always happy to get books and magazines.

It's amazing how quickly the market for railroad books has collapsed in the last few years. I realized that magazines were not in demand much, but when I went to a regional train show last fall I couldn't give away magazines and barely could find anywhere to leave books. I eventually gave the books I was thinning out from my collection to a local non-railroad historical group that had a table there and was going to give away books as part of a fund-raising raffle. The magazines went to my local compactor - about two hundred pounds worth. I don't have a huge book collection, but I do have some books that I have paid a significant amount of money for over the last 35 or so years, and apparently they are now worth a fraction of what I paid for them, even first editions autographed by the author. So, no surprise that Morning Sun Books is ceasing operations and selling off their entire slide archive, probably pretty cheap.

I think you look at several things.
-How long has the organization been in existence?
-Does the organization have a collections policy?
-How does the organization care for the collections it has now? Climate controlled? Fire suppression system?

Just a few thoughts.

~Wesley

Let me be as straightforward as I can be about this:

THERE ARE NEVER ANY GUARANTEES.

Not even the Smithsonian, not even the British Museum, not even the Library of Congress.

Let me give you real-life examples I have personally witnessed, some I will ID by name and others I won't:

I saw one state-operated archive that started the way most academic/museum libraries think: They took in entire collections intact and kept them together as the "John P. Scholar Collection" or whatever, even making custom rubber stamps for each collection. The problem becomes that EVERY such collection has many of the same books (or, for that matter, lanterns, switch keys, etc.), and they don't need 25 copies of the Locomotive Cyclopedia 1925 or Pennsy Power. Eventually they abandoned the practice, but it took them years to reconcile the collections to eliminate duplicates. (I know at least one of the books on my shelf has one of those "The John P. Scholar Collection, XY&Z RR Museum" stamps in it--and I bought it legally.)

I know of one "national library" that "perished" when they lost the space it inhabited, and was shoved into storage and eventually turned over to a major university archive over a thousand miles distant from its original home. Now, I could make the argument that the collection is more accessible where it is now than where it was--but as long as you're in that area and not where it was.

Another "national scope" railroad library, the NMRA A.C. Kalmbach Library at the Tennessee Valley RR Museum, is now closed and in the process of being merged with the California State RR Museum's Library.

The world-scale private library at Kalmbach Media, formerly Kalmbach Publishing Company, is now facing an unknown future.......................

The Interstate Commerce Commission had an epic reference library. It disappeared along with the ICC as transportation regulation withered to a shadow of its former self from 1977 to 1995. If a Federal bureaucracy can disappear................

The Association of American Railroads formerly had an epic, world-class railroad reference library. It's gone now. I have personally steered many of their past holdings, which ended up in some Washington D.C suburb basements and garages after "dumpster dive" rescues, to rail libraries nationally and internationally.

So........................ all you can do is hope for the best. Unless someone wins a multi-million-dollar winning lottery ticket and bequeaths it to the organization, don't hold your breath. And even when someone DOES, priorities can change. Imagine, say, a place like Harvard or Yale deciding railroads are no longer "politically correct"--"built by slaves," "pollutes the planet," "systemic inequity," whatever--and purges an otherwise fine railroad-technology collection from its presence........

This is what happened to the Alaska Railroad collection of the National Archives for all the records from about 1916 to 1990. They were in the Alaska branch of the Archives that had been in Anchorage for many years until it was closed. Most of the materials in the archives went to the Washington branch but the ARR collection went to the State Library in Juneau. Juneau is off of the road system so the collection is no longer easily accessible in the state's largest population center and to the vast majority of the State's population.

Another part of long-term viability is a succession plan for key members/employees. Is there a second person who could pick things up if a key member becomes incapacitated? Are files accessible? Are there written processes? Can more than one person access the bank account?

On the receiving end, our Museum is piloting a pre-donation survey form for donations of books and collectible items. The goal is to give the librarian and the donor a starting point to talk about next steps in receiving a collection. A printed form is also available for visitors who may ask our operating staff about donating items. The preferred reality is to reduce the number of surprise donations and or disappointed donors. Obviously there is always value in a surprise box left on Saturday, so the form is not required.

Library donation form.

Wesley

The easiest and quickest way to determine if your artifacts will be well taken care of is how quickly the institution accepts the donation. If they show great restraint and discretion, those are your people. If they say, "Sure! Bring it all down", it will most likely get stuffed away in a mold ridden boxcar, attic or basement, next to the ubiquitous model trains and to the right of dented, globeless lanterns from some far off railroad.

Through experience, I have learned to approach an institution with a list of items for consideration. The organization can review the items on the list for duplication and determine if it falls within the collection's scope. A serious institution will have you execute a deed of gift to formalize the donation.

From my vantage point on both sides of the fence, I offer two ideas. My first thought is to look at the non-profit's tax returns which are publicly available, then the newsletters, by-laws, etc. Get a feel for the business side of the organization, try to size up where they are going, look at how officers are chosen/elected. My second, and preferred, thought is if you want to ensure a good home, then sell the collection while you are able and on your own terms, don’t donate it to a museum. When there is cold hard cash value assigned to something I tend to feel it is better cared for. From personal experience, go with option two, take the money, have some control over where the item goes.

The entity you might chose to sell your collection to might or might not have much of a future. The distant relative that got the Dave McKay slide collection and didn't care about anything but what they could get out of it sold it to Morning Sun, which, less than 20 years later is now going to sell off their entire archive to who knows who.

Where did this news come from? I did not see a "going out of business" announcement on their website.

The longevity/sustainability of a museum is not the only variable to ponder, because even long-running sites can have major issues. Your best, most sought-after items can go to hell almost immediately if there isn't a genuine, trained conservator-restorer somewhere in the picture and the powers-that-be don't deliver more than lip service WRT preservation. Too many museums and local historical sites are staffed with well-meaning but potentially destructive people who think a surface with patina suddenly needs to get a fresh coat of "close enough Krylon" when they are bored and have nothing else to do… or people who drill multiple new holes in irreplaceable items simply to hang them on some empty spot on the wall… or people who think anything brass needs to be polished to death or wire-wheeled to worthlessness. It only takes one bored, unsupervised volunteer with more enthusiasm than discernment to damage something that had been lovingly preserved as-is since the day the donor acquired it.

(The worst thing I have seen along these lines did not involve railroad items but a collection of local items that were desecrated by a community do-gooder and self-appointed expert who wanted them to "look like new." They did not end up looking like new, and no longer looked historical. Double fail.)

Over time, I have increasingly been converted to the notion that if one wants to find a really good new home for valuable or rare items, it may be better to sell them to individual collectors rather than automatically donating them to a museum or historical society. People who genuinely want an item and have the means to purchase it will generally not treat it like it is some free toy to dick around with until it is no longer of recognizable historic value or loses most of its collector value... let alone simply pitch it in a dumpster out of ignorance. Sadly, when railroadiana is donated and becomes "everybody's to enjoy," it can soon become either "nobody's responsibility" (hat tip to L.T.C. Rolt) or "somebody's personal plaything."

Doing due diligence in choosing a new home for stuff isn't easy, but it does pay off. That being said, it's all going to be out of our hands and past our caring at some point.

More than one person in my circle of in-the-know railroad people in Northeast Ohio. Feeling more than a little burned because Dave's collection was supposed to go to the Akron Railroad Club, but he didn't quite live long enough to sign his will.

Surprised more orgs don't try to setup an endowment fund that's invested then dividends etc can be used within the organization. Could have fundraisers geared towards building up an endowment. Obviously this would take a lot of time and donations to develop a significant cash stream of dividends but it would in effect provide funding for the organization in perpetuity. You'd need to make sure the funds were invested wisely of course without the ability of some dumba$$ within the organization having a say in how they are invested then essentially ruining the whole project.