On ownership of collections

Image courtesy of Bruynzeel Storage UK https://twitter.com/Bruynzeel_UK/status/905841117652033536

As part of the recent RBSCG conference, we were treated to a reception at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, and this is me looking at the opulent surroundings of George IV’s music saloon. One of the striking things I learnt from this visit was that the luxurious collection of bespoke designed furnishings and objects that George IV proudly amassed at the Royal Pavilion was completely stripped out and dispersed after his death by his successor, Queen Victoria. The collection that we saw was made of some original objects which had been begged, borrowed and purchased back from their new owners. There were also objects that had no Royal Pavilion provenance but were right for the period, which were on long term loan from other collections such as Apsley House.

This theme of collection ownership and collection movement was also picked up by a paper on the St Canice’s Cathedral Library Collection by Barbara McCormack. The St Canice’s Cathedral Collection of 3,000 early books, one of the oldest diocesan libraries in the Church of Ireland, was recently moved to Maynooth University . A long term loan agreement was put in place between Maynooth University and the Church of Ireland, where the University paid the costs of moving the collection and conserving it, but now houses the collection at Maynooth for use in research, teaching and exhibitions. The arrangement has borne fruit in new collaborative work going on between the Church of Ireland and Maynooth University, arising from the St Canice’s Library.

Anastasia Tennant from the Arts Council spoke on export controls and tax incentives for the acquisition of mss and books by public institutions. Then Alixe Bovey from the Courtauld Institute spoke about the dissolution of the Mendham Collection – “Reflections on a historic library we couldn’t save”.

Joseph Mendham ( 1769–1856) was fervently devoted to evangelical Protestantism and opposed to Catholicism, and he collected books that had been prohibited by the Catholic Church.  Ironically he built up a library incredible rich in early Catholic as well as Protestant sources. After his death his 5000 books were offered to the library of the Incorporated Law Society, which in 1984  decided to offer the collection on loan to Canterbury Cathedral. During this period, the British Library awarded it a cataloguing grant of +30K subject to the condition that the collection should not be sold in future. On 5 April 2012 the Chief Executive of the Law Society wrote to Canterbury Cathedral Library to inform them that the Law Society intended to sell the collection. From this point, the  Law Society moved very fast to force the sale and dispersal, which a vocal public media campaign was unable to halt.

Learning points that Alice identified from the story are that the  ‘Peoples of the book’ (scholars, students, librarians)  are an amazingly networked, powerful community.
All over the world they will offer money and support to save rare books. However if you have a campaign with a single charismatic item, like a Shakespeare first folio, it’s much easier to gather support. Collections are more difficult to ‘sell’, particularly theological collections amassed for reasons that don’t appeal to modern times.  Time matters – a campaign should stall for much time as possible.  Ironically, a lasting monument to the collection is the Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, which shows how much cataloguing matters!

Finally Margaret Lane Ford from Christies spoke on practical advice on dispersal from the book trade. She pointed out several existing guidelines for good practice

CILIP Disposals Policy for Rare Books and Manuscripts

MLA (now Arts Council) Guidance on Disposals

Bibliographical Society Libraries at Risk Policy

It’s important to remember that dispersal of libraries has always taken place, and that weeding and management are necessary.

Factors to be considered include :

• Collection integrity
• Relevance of material
• Legal right to deaccession
• Use of the proceeds
• Public access
• Reputational risk
• Duplication
• Copy specific features

The process should be transparent, with clearly stated goals. Bookdealers and auction houses are not the enemy. They are brought in after the decision for sale has been made. Decisions are almost always financial and may be notified to librarians at a very late stage.

On missing books

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Most libraries encounter some problems with missing books, and implement procedures to mitigate the risks of theft and damage to collections. Fortunately in many cases the books are found, either in the library or returned to us by their borrowers. When working with Special Collections, there are a number of particular challenges, which the second day of the CILIP Rare Books & Special Collections Group conference aimed to tackle.

Anke Timmerman’s talk on “Involuntary Deacessions : An ABA perspective on book theft and vandalism” looked at the dark side of the provenance research undertaken by antiquarian booksellers, which can lead to the discovery of thefts and disappearances. as knowledgeable book thieves can make millions of pounds, this is a global problem. The Antiquarian Booksellers Association has guidelines for the deterrence of library theft. There are two key elements :  booksellers can’t break up books or remove evidence of provenance, and booksellers are responsible for ensuring that material offered to them is the property of the seller. Declarations must be sought that they are the legal owners of the book.

While booksellers recognise their responsibilities, libraries should have procedures that minimise the opportunities of theft by library staff and others. The cataloguing of rare books, and recording with copy specific information is a key security measure. If material is being deacessioned, it should receive an indelible cancellation stamp, and a clear record of disposal should be kept with sufficient information to enable subsequent identification of a particular book.

If a book is reported stolen, it should be reported to your own library, governing body, police, and insurance. If the book is worth £100 or more it can be reported to the ABA or if it’s worth more than £300 the Art Loss Register can be notified. It’s important to report losses even if the book has been stolen long ago, as books may appear in the trade many years after they are stolen. The book trade maintains a database of stolen books at http://www.stolen-book.org.

A librarian’s view on these issues was provided by Adrian Edwards, whose paper
‘Collection security at the British Library and the management of risk’ really set out the gold standard of library security management. The British Library operates secure collection management at an enormous scale, with 242000 items delivered to rare book reading rooms each year.

The first theme Adrian tackled was ‘Lost books’. The use of a database to track where items are at any points, and scanning items as they move around the buildings helps to keep track of collection items on the move. People pose the biggest risk to the safety of collections. At the BL staff policies, such as a staff use of the collections policy, control who can access which collections stores, and what staff can do with collections they are using for their work. Housekeeping routines such as annual audits of secure cupboards, and a full annual recall of all books out to staff help to keep on top of things. All staff are required to report missing books, and all failed reader requests are investigated.

Accidental damage is another risk to the collections that can be managed by staff policies and staff training, to tackle poor book handling by staff and contractors, as well as by library readers. Failure to maintain storage areas and shelving can also damage books.

Criminal damage and theft are the missing book issues which make the headlines.

Much of this theft is not the theft of whole volumes, but of extracts, illustrations and maps removed from books. Maps are particularly attractive to thieves, and illustrated plates can be identified by thieves who have used published bibliographies have been used as shopping lists. It’s difficult for a library to check every plate each time a book is consulted. However, allowing readers to take photos with mobile phones means casual damage of books to remove plates seems to be happening less. The British Library has dealt with several prominent book thieves in recent years, all of whom had been well known and trusted by library staff.

The British Library has a Collection Security group, and operates a zero tolerance policy for readers and staff. It’s open about the impact of theft and mutilation to collections, and it operates a full disclosure policy and publishes missing books list. Currently there are 9786 missing books on missing books list – although nearly all from the days when the British Museum looked after the collections.  New missing books have an agreed process for investigation, using a triage process – more staff resource is focused on investigating certain types of incident. The BL categorises all items according to value and vulnerability, and keeps high resolution images of particularly valuable or high value items.

Collection security report forms are kept. Accurate records of collection use are essential for any investigation, because they enable you to look for patterns of problems. In the end, there will always be risks where the public are allowed to access collections.

Giles Mandelbrote, from Lambeth Palace Library, spoke about his experiences of theft in ‘Returned after 40 years : stolen books from Lambeth Palace Library’. This was a theft that came to light when a former Lambeth Palace employee made deathbed confession that property belonging to the library might be found at his home (see Guardian report).  1400 rare books were found in his attic, which needed 3 van loads to take them away. The theft had happened in the post-war period, when the collections were in a state of chaos due to bomb damage and books being moved around the building. If a book couldn’t be found the obvious explanation was the war. And the thief was an informed thief who had removed all the relevant cards from the catalogue (these were found in the the attic). He had also deliberately damaged the books to remove stamps and plates that were evidence of ownership.
Learning points included the importance of shelfmarks in books for tracing the provenance, the archaeology of the book.

A key issue was managing the news story. On one level it was a story of bad security – but with a happy ending! So press reporting deliberately didn’t dwell on circumstances of theft, on the understanding that this might encourage anyone else who has caches of books to return them. Instead it focused on returning the books into use and what the returned books mean to scholarship. By doing this, the story helped to positively raise the public profile of Lambeth Palace Library.

Issues that came up in discussion were:

• Open vs secretive? Clearly this is an issue that most libraries have had to deal with, but few disclose details about. If library theft was more openly reported and treated as a criminal offence, would it deter thieves more?
• Library staff need to be aware of the commercial value of the books.
• Be aware some thieves steal for their own collections which makes even trusted scholars potential thieves
• There is a tension between need to mark items and the need not to irretrievably deface items.