[Milsurplus] Archive to Donate

[Robert Newberry]

http://www.vrcmct.org/

Vintage radio and communications museum of CT.

These guys are a first class group and have extensive archives.
On Nov 11, 2011 12:53 PM, "J. Forster" <jfor at quikus.com> wrote:

> > When I was involved with AMSAT we had lots of people and companies that
> > wanted to donate archives. Problem was storage space was always an issue.
> > Paper archives can build up fast, quite often we are talking about
> > hundreds of items so it's not just a box of records but hundreds of
> pounds
> > of papers. Warehouse space is expensive, rent and utilities along with
> > someone to stack, catalog and move the stuff.
>
> A fair point, but there are records and meaningful records.
>
> In buying surplus, I've been through warehouses that had hundreds of feet
> of shelving of boxes of paper. Most of that is meaningless...  trhings
> like QA reports on modules, test records, purchase orders, and the other
> day-to-day paper of producing product. The meaningful engineering stuff,
> which should be preserved, is a tiny subset of that.
>
> > Whenever you get a donated
> > storage space that has a habit of going away at some point then you're
> > moving all that stuff again. We had a time just allocating space for
> > donated flight ready hardware, tools and test equipment, stewardship of
> > others archives had to be a lower priority. Then in the case of corporate
> > material many companies cannot consider giving the material to an
> > individual because then they have no control over it. What if that person
> > goes thru that material and finds information that's detrimental to the
> > company and publishes it?
>
> Records are usually held by the originator company until the Statute of
> Limitations has long expired.
>
> > What if they turn around and sell it?
>
> Who, other than a historian would want it? Is anybody really going to
> build new ARC-5s today?
>
> > In today's world any company is going to shred something way before
> > taking any chance on it coming back to bite them. But let's not despair
> > too much; there are more museums, on line archives and collectors than
> > ever before.
>
> Yes, but they are far too evanescent. Is Bill Howard's site still
> available? Not AFAIK.
>
> > Look at the proliferation of museum ships and aviation
> > museums in the last fifty years.
>
> Yes, and some, but not all, want to gut the electronics to save weight.
>
> > I just finished putting together some
> > media for the kiosks for the Frank Perdue museum we have here at our
> > Perdue School of business that we just opened this year. That's a three
> > hundred thousand dollar investment with a third of the space for
> > traveling exhibits
>
> But that serves a modern purpose...  selling chickens and chicken
> accessories. :)
>
> > and our first one there is on Richard Bernstein who is
> > one of the founders of K&L microwave where they brought in examples
> > projects K&L manufactured. In addition to all this our school operates
> > the Ward Brothers Museum of Wildfowl Art, one of the largest collections
> > in the world of water fowl and decoy art. From what I recall that
> > facility not including the collection was around four and a half million,
> > who
> >   would have thorough that wooden decoys are that big of a deal?
>
> You could presereve a lot of radios, etc, for that kind of money.
>
> YMMV,
>
> -John
>
> =================
>
> > Maybe
> > they would feel the same way about electronics? And last but not least
> > we operate something called The Nabb Research Center that exists solely
> > to preserve local history. And this is just one small university. Maybe
> > the key to preserving history is to preserve it where it takes place?
> > And to get out and work with the local agencies in that community,
> > volunteer and contribute but have to wonder what if anything this
> > ongoing thread about how the worlds going to hell and how the rest of
> > the worlds a bunch of idiots is going to help anything.
> > Ray F, KA3EKH
> >
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