Message-ID: <FE85754A15BC43D0AEBD5A9D1900D74F@JackHost> From: "Jack Berndt" <JFBerndt1@frontier.com> Subject: Temporary Custody Receipt & Deed of Gift forms issue Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:34:27 -0600
In the past year 2010, a new staff of volunteers has discovered upwards
of a hundred-plus (no exact number...) old Temporary Custody Receipt
(TCR) forms scattered about our museum. These are copied word for word
from the Past Perfect software program and typically include the donor's
name. As I'm sure many of you know, the TCR forms represent the initial
phase in acquiring an artifact, and when correct procedure is followed,
the next step is to complete and sign the Deed of Gift, to ensure legal
ownership of a donation. Therein lies our problem - for whatever reason
in the past - a subsequent Deed of Gift was not completed much of the
time. In addition, the TCRs are often partially filled out, some are
signed by the donor, many are not. Choice boxes were left unchecked.
These forms go back through the past decade, into the late 1990s. And as
you might expect, a few of the donors are no longer living.
From an ethical and/or legal standpoint, are we as the current museum
caretakers obligated to go through each and every one of these aged and
inherited TCR forms in an attempt to secure a signed Deed of Gift from
the donor; or when warranted, relatives of the donor? We have been doing
this, but it is a daunting and overwhelming task in terms of time and
research. Our historical society has a very small number of staff (all
unpaid volunteers) and given the usual attrition with this kind of help,
it will predictably take years and years to work on this problem. And
the final count is not in... we are continually finding more TCRs as we
look through and catalog our collection!
Our museum has recently changed the collections policy so that from now
on, "going forward" - a Deed of Gift is immediately signed by a donor
giving us legal ownership of an item(s) at the time of the initial
exchange. Based on these findings as described, the Board of Directors
is also asking this important question: do we legally own the articles
in our museum when there is no documented signed Deed of Gift, only a
signedTemporary Custody Receipt associated with that item?
We're considering legal consultation at some point, but are curious if
this scenario is unique or have other museums encountered a similar
situation. Any comments or suggestions would be welcomed.
Thank you,
Jack Berndt, Sauk Prairie Area Historical Society Board of Directors & Acting Museum Manager