P3D gifts to museums

[Michael Kaplan <mkaplan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My experience (in a non-photographic field) was with the Smithsonian. I
was told that since the Institution was a public entity, they couldn't
accept collections as gifts that had any stipulations whatsoever regarding
exhibit, storage etc. A private entity might be more accomodating. I asked
the Smithsonian what the advantage would be of willing a collection to
them. They responded that, in general, the collection would be more
accessible to the public; i.e. it would be properly catalogued (if it is
not already) and would be available to researchers.

I visited the collection at the California Museum of Photography which
houses the Keystone/Mast stereograph collection. The latter is a
particularly well-organized treasure trove of material. I was a bit less
impressed with their "hardware" collection - cameras, viewers etc. which
were thrown into storage boxes and put on shelves. Perhaps one of the
curators of CMP who are P3D listmembers could make comments about
this interesting (IMO) thread of willing collections to museums. 

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Michael Kaplan
Professor of Architecture Emeritus
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
mkaplan@xxxxxxx


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