Donations

We have a couple of questions relating to Section 233-A of NYS Education Law, the "Museum Property Law". The law as written seems to only address totally undocumented objects and recent loans, but it also seems to have clear implications for the many partially documented objects and very old loans we have to deal with.

[NOTE:  For some initial background on New York's law governing museums and loaned/donated items, see Special collections not recorded on institution's ledgers]

There seems to be a trend for libraries that have Friends groups to hold fundraisers, donations, and membership drives at the library. In some instances, the library collects money for the Friends and pays it to them at a later date.

Ideally, a public library does NOT handle the money of another entity, even for "Friends."  Ever.

That said, there is no law barring a library from helping out a partner or organization with cash handling for events; this "never" rule comes from risk management, not the law.  

Could we use any of our budgetary funds as collected through our tax levy and/or funds received from donations (restricted and unrestricted) to pay for food (dry goods, fresh produce and/or fruit) and PPE's which would be given freely to the public/patrons some of which may not be from our community (we would not ask them for a library card or ID)?

Before I answer this, I am going to share a story.  Trust me, it’s relevant.

Recently, our library has been given a collection of photographs that were previously on display in a local business location. These are photos of the customers of the business, many are children. These photos span several decades and are important to many. 

To answer the member’s questions, we must start with the fundamentals.

When accepting a donation of culturally significant photos, an archive should have a donor agreement or other documentation that addresses the following things:

Does the donor solely own the physical photos?

Is physical ownership being given to your institution?

We are planning to put together a public page with information on various artworks donated to our university. We'd like to post an image of the art, information on where it is on campus, information on the artwork itself, etc. 

This sounds like a great project…a public page providing a guided tour of art throughout the campus, with maps, information, and pictures to help the viewer find the works.

But you’re right, if they haven’t expired, the rights are still the property of the artist—or their heirs, or any third party they were sold to.  And the digital image you create could infringe those rights.

Can we use the email addresses of our patrons from our ILS patron database to send a donation request for our association library's annual fundraising drive? We would exclude requests to minor patrons.

Before I wrote this answer, I stopped to ponder the fact that there are over 20 library systems in New York, each with its own policy and approach to managing the information in its "ILS" (integrated library system).