Open Forum

Pennsylvania's state senate has a bill in the works to help guide museums and history organizations with unclaimed property. We have samples of bills from several states, and we feel it would be useful to hear from collections professionals in the field. If you are willing to provide us some feedback, we're interested in hearing how you've used your state's law. What works? What doesn't?

Thank you in advance for sharing your experience!

Be well,

Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg, PA


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Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg PA
www.pamuseums.org
------------------------------

Hi Rusty. It was good to see you in DC for MAD. A lot has changed since then, though.


At a previous museum in Missouri, I used the MO Museums Property Act a lot. It worked well, with a few annoying exceptions.
1. Make sure it includes information for the 21st century. Notices, etc., should be able to be done electronically. (Our law still requires newspaper notices.)
2. The wait times were annoying -- although not as annoying as the 30 years in Michigan. Even if you have to have a 7-year wait because of the state other abandoned property legislation, try to get the wait times between notices and claiming ownership shorter rather than longer.

I've done a lot of research on other state's laws because of a presentation I did a few years back. But, you've probably done some of that too.

Let me know if I can help out in any way.

Linda

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Linda Endersby
Registrar/Collections Mgr
Museum of Art & Archaeology, University of Missouri - Columbia
Columbia MO
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2020 03:49 PM
From: Rusty Baker
Subject: Unclaimed Property Laws and other collections-related legislation

Pennsylvania's state senate has a bill in the works to help guide museums and history organizations with unclaimed property. We have samples of bills from several states, and we feel it would be useful to hear from collections professionals in the field. If you are willing to provide us some feedback, we're interested in hearing how you've used your state's law. What works? What doesn't?

Thank you in advance for sharing your experience!

Be well,

Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg, PA


------------------------------
Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg PA
www.pamuseums.org
------------------------------

Hello Rusty,

I second everything Linda has said.

One of the Minnesota law's challenges is that "notices" were intended to be published in newspapers, though the word "newspaper" isn't included in the law.  A number of us collections managers and registrars intend to rectify this language in the future, but that will of course require work with the state legislature.  Newspaper notices are quite expensive, so in-print publication of notices for low-value objects has become cost-prohibitive for my institution.

We have used Minnesota's abandoned property law quite a few years ago to obtain title to two paintings that we wanted to accession and conserve.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Kind regards,
Leslie Ory Lewellen

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Leslie Ory Lewellen
Registrar for Collections
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minneapolis, MN
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-26-2020 03:42 PM
From: Linda Endersby
Subject: Unclaimed Property Laws and other collections-related legislation

Hi Rusty. It was good to see you in DC for MAD. A lot has changed since then, though.


At a previous museum in Missouri, I used the MO Museums Property Act a lot. It worked well, with a few annoying exceptions.
1. Make sure it includes information for the 21st century. Notices, etc., should be able to be done electronically. (Our law still requires newspaper notices.)
2. The wait times were annoying -- although not as annoying as the 30 years in Michigan. Even if you have to have a 7-year wait because of the state other abandoned property legislation, try to get the wait times between notices and claiming ownership shorter rather than longer.

I've done a lot of research on other state's laws because of a presentation I did a few years back. But, you've probably done some of that too.

Let me know if I can help out in any way.

Linda

------------------------------
Linda Endersby
Registrar/Collections Mgr
Museum of Art & Archaeology, University of Missouri - Columbia
Columbia MO

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2020 03:49 PM
From: Rusty Baker
Subject: Unclaimed Property Laws and other collections-related legislation

Pennsylvania's state senate has a bill in the works to help guide museums and history organizations with unclaimed property. We have samples of bills from several states, and we feel it would be useful to hear from collections professionals in the field. If you are willing to provide us some feedback, we're interested in hearing how you've used your state's law. What works? What doesn't?

Thank you in advance for sharing your experience!

Be well,

Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg, PA


------------------------------
Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg PA
www.pamuseums.org
------------------------------

I agree with Linda. The shortened wait times in Indiana since 2016 have made the process much easier but the requirement to publish in newspapers seems antiquated. I'm not sure what platform would be universally acceptable but I don't think people are reading classifieds in newspapers anymore. It's a tedious (and sometimes expensive) process for the museum and likely ineffectual at actually notifying the concerned parties. 

I would also like to add that Indiana's change regarding expired loans has made a world of difference for us. In the past, we would have been required to track down heirs/agents for any abandoned loan - and we had some going back to the early 1900s! Now, as long as there is no paperwork indicating it was a "permanent" loan", it simply becomes the museum's property after 7 years if there has been no written communication from the lender. That has allowed us to easily accession/dispose of decades-old loans that were never retrieved and had been waiting in limbo for the staff to find time to track down people's descendants.

Good luck with the legislation and stay healthy!

------------------------------
Michelle Nash
Elkhart County Historical Museum
Bristol IN
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-26-2020 03:42 PM
From: Linda Endersby
Subject: Unclaimed Property Laws and other collections-related legislation

Hi Rusty. It was good to see you in DC for MAD. A lot has changed since then, though.


At a previous museum in Missouri, I used the MO Museums Property Act a lot. It worked well, with a few annoying exceptions.
1. Make sure it includes information for the 21st century. Notices, etc., should be able to be done electronically. (Our law still requires newspaper notices.)
2. The wait times were annoying -- although not as annoying as the 30 years in Michigan. Even if you have to have a 7-year wait because of the state other abandoned property legislation, try to get the wait times between notices and claiming ownership shorter rather than longer.

I've done a lot of research on other state's laws because of a presentation I did a few years back. But, you've probably done some of that too.

Let me know if I can help out in any way.

Linda

------------------------------
Linda Endersby
Registrar/Collections Mgr
Museum of Art & Archaeology, University of Missouri - Columbia
Columbia MO

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2020 03:49 PM
From: Rusty Baker
Subject: Unclaimed Property Laws and other collections-related legislation

Pennsylvania's state senate has a bill in the works to help guide museums and history organizations with unclaimed property. We have samples of bills from several states, and we feel it would be useful to hear from collections professionals in the field. If you are willing to provide us some feedback, we're interested in hearing how you've used your state's law. What works? What doesn't?

Thank you in advance for sharing your experience!

Be well,

Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg, PA


------------------------------
Rusty Baker
Executive Director
PA Museums
Harrisburg PA
www.pamuseums.org
------------------------------