Has there been any discussion about the eventual fate of our collections after we are gone? My wife and I have discussed this at some length. I see three phases to my collection. Phase one: Active procurement (Present state) My collection currently exists in a very unorganized state in my basement. I have no real inventory list. Phase two: Active display Fully inventoried with a list of what works and what doesn't. We've discussed the possiblity of setting up some sort of cybercafe to help pay for maintaining the collection. Phase three: Finding the collection a new home (After I'm gone) This is the tough one. In the wrong hands the collection might just go to a landfill and that would be a real shame. I have no kids so there is no one to carry on the tradition. I shudder to think about the eventual fate of all of our collections. Do we need a national repository for all of this stuff? Thoughts to ponder, George ========================================================= George L. Rachor george(a)racsys.rt.rain.com Beaverton, Oregon http://racsys.rt.rain.com

On Wed, 7 Oct 1998, George Rachor wrote: I believe there was a short talk on this a while back. I think its an issue that should be re-visited from time to time. Start inventorying! Don't wait until after you're dead to find a succesor, because, after all, you will be dead and this will be impossible. You should work out a will right now that specifies what is to happen to your collection and add it to your regular will. You should find a trustee who will take on your collection and either keep it for the next successor or manage its proper dissemination to other collectors. I think it would be a neat idea to start a registry here on the list of some sorts, where we can all specify who gets what from our collection if we go to the bit bucket in the sky, and formalize this and get it certified or something (whatever legal term applies). My plan isn't on paper yet (and is only half formulated in my mind) but I'm young and don't plan to die anytime soon. However, I have given it some thought, and will be formalizing some sort of will for my collection that will most likely include parts of my collection going to some local collectors (uh oh, I think I can sense hits being put out on me by some of the locals), some going to computer museums, etc. Of course this may all change when I create the non-profit research center I'm planning to. Once that's rolling I will put measures in place to insure that the collection lives on long after I've been deleted from the directory. At the basest level, I see the purpose of a historical collection as two-fold: 1) to occupy and entertain us while we (the collector) are here 2) to leave a legacy for future generations to learn from and enjoy after we've been re-directed to /dev/null (aren't you getting sick of my clever euphemisms?) Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ever onward. Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 09/21/98]

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