Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:40:27 -0600 From: sara steele <smsteele@wisc.edu> Subject: Research fees Message-id: <24B54928E0144C888432F6E0A53A0C3A@SaraPC>
HI
Perhaps the nature of fees should depend upon the main foci of your society. If looking up information is a supplementary service that someone has to do some digging for and is not a focus of what your society is collecting, then of course fees are very appropriate. However, if your society is keenly interested in the people that once lived in your community and is building a collection of family histories or a photo archives, n , you may want to ask for things in return in addition to or instead of a smal fee.
We don't get a lot of requests as a Historical Society, but I'm also into geneology and am listed as a source in a couple of places on the web. I usually do not charge except for paper copies of materials. Often I have the info here at home in my compuer files or local prinit reference materials so it does not take long to answer the request.
For example, my Historical Society collegue who keeps the spread sheet on Cottag Grove area deaths, has given me a copy which I access from my desk top and I have the early census in computer files and hard copies of early CG plats at my fingertips.
The main reason that I don't charge a fee is that I usually get information and photos back from the quierrier that make the exchange even in value or is in CGAHS's favor, Recently we were able to get a photo of a woman buried in our cemetery whose family all moved west. She was buried here before 1900.
In the course of tracing early CG residents--Civil War soldiers and others--I have used library and Historical Societies across the country. Most of have reasonable fees. The only one that bothered me--one in New York state that insisted that I become a member for the year. I could understand that rquirement if I had been a former resident, but not under my circumstances.
It surprises me that only a few of the HS's I have contacted for information have asked me for a copy of any reports that I made using the information. Apparently relatively few societies build family history archives.
Sara Steele
CGAHS Text Archivist