From: Rod Smallwood Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 8:39 AM > Stop this Policy and Budget nonsense and accept gracefully the help you > have been offered.
You speak as if this were Al's personal decision and policy. It is not. Museums are expected to adhere to a set of standards of care for their collections, which are formally set out by relevant bodies; see, for example, the British and US pages at the following URLs: British: http://www.museumsassociation.org/museum-practice US: http://aam-us.org/resources/ethics-standards-and-best-practices In order for this work to be done by volunteers, they first have to be vetted, and their work must be overseen by a professional (which costs those scarce funds). It might be done by unpaid interns who already have training in proper cataloguing and preservation techniques, but they also would have to be overseen by a paid professional. More things have been accidentally damaged or destroyed by enthusiastic amateurs than have ever been preserved with proper provenance, cataloguing, and care. I realize that this will cut no ice with you, but CHM has a responsibility beyond your happiness with respect to preserving this archive, and Al is correct to point this out. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computers: Museum + Labs 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:ri...@livingcomputers.org http://www.LivingComputers.org/
