Fw: H-ASIA Reducing a personal library - suggestion for donating materials

----- Original Message -----
From: "Monika Lehner" <monika.lehner@UNIVIE.AC.AT>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 12:48 PM
Subject: H-ASIA Reducing a personal library - suggestion for donating
materials

> H-ASIA
> January 4, 2011
>
> Reducing a personal library - suggestion for donating materials
> ***********************************************************************
> From: "Reilly, Chrissie Tate Ms CIV USA AMC"
> <chrissie.tate.reilly@us.army.mil>
>
> Dear H-Asia Community,
>
> After reading the initial post from Brian McKnight, and the follow-up
> comment by Ian Welch, I hope that the suggestion I propose will be helpful
> to some fellow H-Asia readers.
>
> One possible recipient of donated materials is US Department of Defense
> archives and libraries. My main research area is food in modern Japan
> (especially WWII), but I work as a historian for the US Army. I know that
> our small library in the archive where I work contains materials that are
> not easily found elsewhere, and some of the larger libraries - like the US
> Army Heritage and Education Center - have extensive collections, and
> excellent policies for those wishing to visit and do research.
>
> Typically, if someone is interested in donating materials to our archive:
> (1) we only accept what we will use; (2) we make recommendations for where
> materials we are not interested in could go; and (3) these materials are
> then made available to everyone, pretty much worldwide. Occasionally, our
> office will even scan in & make searchable entire books, and then these
> can be emailed or otherwise disseminated to people geographically distant
> from where we are (which happens to be Northeastern Maryland, USA).
>
> For example, when we get a new book, we add it to our internal resource
> guide, but we make sure it gets listed on our website, too:
> http://cecom.army.mil/historian/books.php
>
> And sometimes we have the chance to even feature the collections or
> donations in their own blog entry:
> http://cecomhistorian.armylive.dodlive.mil/2010/06/04/historical-office-accessions-rare-wwi-era-photographs
>
> I know that our office does not sell off surplus materials, and all other
> Army, Navy, and Air Force archives I've interacted with do not, either.
> Typically, if something is no longer needed (or was accessioned as part of
> a bulk donation and not relevant to our mission), we find another archive
> that is interested in it. We sent out 125,000+ microfiche to the Air
> Force and 50,000+ of them to the Navy in 2010 this way. Our philosophy is
> that just because *we* don't need it, doesn't mean someone else out there
> wouldn't be thrilled to have it.
>
> Of course, this is not immediately relevant to Ian Welch and missionary
> history, but sometimes less "traditional" places like this make good homes
> for books.
>
> Happy New Year, and good luck to everyone with their collections!
>
> Chrissie Reilly
> US Army Staff Historian
> Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD
> Phone: (443) 861-6737
> Website: http://cecom.army.mil/historian
> Blog: http://cecomhistorian.armylive.dodlive.mil
>
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