But it taught me a lesson. I considered placing my large personal collection of papers in an appropriate university library. (There’s material that goes back to the late 1700s.) I won’t. You can’t trust them. For a period I negotiated with a college library over my personal book collection. I collect a very narrow field of religious history. Some of the books I own are nearly unique. A few manuscripts are. I went as far as including them on my bequest list. (This all makes it sound like I’m close to the grave. I’m not. But one must be prepared.) I’ve taken them off my bequest list. What led me to remove them was an off-handed explanation that they gave away most bequests.

Another factor was in the treatment of the material, as they anticipated it. Some items need restoration. What they anticipated doing was turning them over to a library bookbinder, and having them rebound in buckram. This is not good librarianship. It’s not good conservation. I have a first edition of William Whiston’s A New Theory of the Earth. It needs conservation. I can’t see some college library, no matter how much I respect the school’s academic standards, rebinding it in buckram.

If my library won’t stay intact, why leave it to them? I’ve worked hard, and I’ve spent more money than I should . If it’s going to be broken up, why not let my children do it and reclaim the money?

Institutional libraries (I mean colleges, universities, and national libraries) are useful, but they have an attitude that is sometimes unfathomable. So, I’ve decided to give this to my kids. Or I may sell it myself when I reach my old age.

:-(

A related problem is that, after you’re dead, it doesn’t much matter what your wishes were in these matters. It’s like the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia (20th century art). Albert Barnes put in his will that it was to stay in one particular location. But the trustees who control his foundation now have had it moved.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A135-2004Dec14.html

So suppose, as a writer, you leave it in your will that your personal papers are to be kept private — who knows whether the legal system would uphold your wishes?

Better off burning them . . .

Scholars have the right of curiosity; they don’t have rights to personal papers. The San Diego Historical Society has family photos that they acquired in what I believe to be an unethical way. They sell them. They were provided to a researcher back in the 1930s for her personal use. No one from the family gave any permission for them to be duplicated, sold, or stored in a historical society archive. I’ve learned a lesson from this. The few occasions when I’ve let a “scholar” use material I own have been governed by a signed permission that limits exactly how they can use it and limits their rights to circulate copies.

If you don’t want your family papers out there, don’t let them go to a public archive.

My blog is all that passes for a journal of my life. And somehow I don’t see anyone ever wanting to know about my “personal” thoughts. ‘Course, I don’t really consider myself an “artist” either. My writing is intended to entertain, not necessarily stand the test of time and be studied in schools.

Just the thought of that is a hoot!

John