A situation recently arose when a local railroad museum purchased a collection of historical valuable material, photos slides, documents ect, from the heirs of a well known collector/writer. The problem is the deceased had a terrible reputation as to how many of the items were obtained ranging from borrowing and failing to return items to outright theft. My question to other museums and historic societies is how would you have responded to the offer of a significant historic collection with these type of questions about the collection. The heirs of course warranted that all materials were properly and lawful obtained

I have left out the names intentionally.
Tom Cox

I would start by making some *discrete* enquiries of any organisations who might have been, ahem, "missing a few items". If the result was that the rightful keepers "rediscovered" items that have been "misfiled" then, apart from a slightly unpleasant taste, most people would probably be satisfied.

The heirs to the estate are unlikely to be aware of any questionable aquisition policies practiced by the deceased.

Let's review the libel manual a minute.

It's not possible, in a legal or actionable sense, to libel/slander a dead person.

So go ahead and name the alleged sloppy file-keeper.

I only show concern for your "outright theft" comment. Here in the U.S. stolen property is just that ....stolen! And the fact that one had no idea of such has no relevance should the rightful owner appear. Most theft statutes indicate this. The old "buyer beware" syndrome.

As the deceased "collector" was able to retain the (allegedly) stolen items it seems that those who had (allegedy) *lost* items were unable to either, prove title or, had acquired them in circumstances that were themselves slightly dubious. The seeming absence of any prior legal action is interesting.

Or could the allegations be caused by jealousy on the part of other collectors? I have heard of such happenings before.

Failure to returned "borrowed" material is unfortunately quite common in situations involving some authors who are requesting items for use in projects for publication. Over the years I have had some items "borrowed" that were not returned, and the cost of taking legal action to recover them is prohibitive. The person lending the item just has to learn from the experience and be more cautious dealing with the requester.

There are other activities that take place in the publishing business nowadays that are equally questionable, including publishers using material submitted for a specific project repeatedly in subsequent projects without asking permission, and "banking" images and information to sell to other publishers without any compensation to the original owner. Material you thought you were sending for one specific project can easily end up in CD's of stock photos being sold on eBay a couple months later.

There are also a few authors in the hobby who have a reputation for requesting massive amounts of photographic material from others when planning a project, then use mostly their own material instead, and hold onto the submitted stuff for long periods of time or return it scratched and fingerprinted. In a few cases I suspect this is a deliberate tactic to obstruct others from publishing material in their area of interest.

If asked to submit material for publication an owner might consider requiring a written receipt and a signed one-time use agreement before loaning anything, but it would still be costly and time consuming to pursue legal remedies in the event of theft of the material.

Another way to protect your original material is by limiting what you are willing to provide, just offer a high quality scanned copy that you will have made locally at the requester's expense (and payable in advance). For example, a high quality 4000 DPI TIFF image made from a 35mm slide is perfectly usable for most publishing requirements. With the scanning and digital imaging technology as good as it is today, people who insist on obtaining your original materials should be viewed with some suspicion.

In regards to the collections policy, if something seems amiss the best thing to do is indeed make discreet inquiries. As for the issue of borrowing items for use in publication, the simple way to deal with that is to write up a quick usage agreement. When I compiled material for my book, that is exactly what I did with every contributor. It stipulated that the permission to use the images was conferred for use in my publication only and included the credit lines verbatum. Each party recieved a copy of the signed agreement. In the case of my major contributor, he sent a large number of negatives on the condition that they be promptly returned after having the prints developed which I did.

On a personal note, I did purchase the majority of a personal collection from the nephew of a known railroadiana collector in St. Louis. The man was well known in live steam circles and had collected a lot of relics from southern post Civil War railroads and had a good reputation-as well as connections to railroad officials. The authenticity of every item was verifiable through notes as well as photographs in appropriate cases. More importantly, the items appeared to have been acquired through legal means given his known connections and almost certainly did not change hands until he passed away and they were inherited from his nephew, from whom I purchased them. Most of the items I was unaware existed and upon seeing them and the evidence I was certain that they were not from any collection that I knew of and were most definately the real thing.