Museums, etc

I fail to see the connection. In the case of the museum, I'd volunteered to help out there. I'd spent several days working there. I just asked if I could look at their collection of documentation, in fact my initial request for for a printset for one of _their_ machines that I was working on (I had -- and had taken with me -- printsets for most of the system, but I didn't have them (IIRC) for the tape drive). I was basically told 'no way'. Contacting a relative of a deceased collector is rather different. In that case you are often not know to said relative (I was known to the people at Bletchley). There is also the time problem -- you need to leave it long enough that said relative is ready to deal with the effects of the collector, but no so long that he/she comes to the conclusion that nobody is interested in them. But anyway... I do not like lending out my manuals. Mainly because I am likely to need them myself. That said, if anyone at Bletchley had asked if I had a manual for some machine, and I had it, I would have been happy to bring it up on my next visit and let them look at it while I was there. Which is all I wanted to do with the museum's manuals. I didn't want to take them off-site. -tony