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Archiver > GENANZ > 2000-06 > 0960197981


From: "Kerry Raymond" <>
Subject: Re: WHAT DO I DO WITH IT ALL???
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:39:41 +1000


> If you're a Queenslander, why not get in contact with the Genealogical
> Society of QLD, ... They'd love it, and it's there for future
> generations who may be interested

The person who started this thread said that s/he had approached some
societies and had been told that a donated book of the family history would
be welcome but not the complete collection of research material. I do not
know which societies the person approached, but I think I can explain the
reasons for their response.

I'm a member of the GSQ Management Committee, and (speaking for myself not
the committee) I don't think that GSQ could become a repository for personal
research collections of deceased genealogists.

Yes, genealogical societies are very keen to preserve records for future
generations, and in a perfect world, we would love this kind of material.
But ...

Providing some kind of permanent archive for someone's family history
research would take both time and money. Genealogical societies are usually
pretty short of time/money, and typically priority is given to things that
offer benefit to the maximum number of members. An archive of one person's
research isn't going to benefit many members (although it could be a
goldmine for a few individuals).

Even storage would be an issue. We pay real commercial rent for our library
premises; it's one of our biggest annual expenses in fact. Rents in the
inner suburbs of Brisbane are in excess of $100 per square meter per annum.
You can get about 3 x 4-drawer filing cabinets onto a floor space of 1
square metre. So, if donated material filled just one drawer of those filing
cabinets (and I suspect most of us would have far more material), the cost
would be at about $10 per year for storage space alone. Even at today's
prices, it would cost $100 for 10 years of storage for 1 drawer's worth of
material to be stored in our library. Obviously one could look at renting
some shed in an outer suburb to reduce the storage costs, but it still going
to cost something.

While one or two boxes of material could obviously be squeezed into some
nook, I doubt our society could cope with receiving many large collections
of research, just for storage considerations alone.

So, if anyone is thinking of bequeathing their personal research collection
to a society, I would suggest that you ask first if the society is actually
willing/able to receive it. I also suggest you consider bequeathing the
society some money to contribute to the long-term storage and/or
preservation costs of the material too, especially if you are not a member
of the society.

I wish it was a perfect world but it isn't, sadly.

Kerry


--
============================================================
Dr Kerry Raymond, Distinguished Research Fellow
CRC for Enterprise Distributed Systems Technology Ph: +61 7 3365 4310
University of Queensland 4072 Australia Fax: +61 7 3365 4311
===================================================== www.dstc.edu.au/kerry

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