[78-L] Large University Throwing away records?

[Michael Biel]

Ronald Lees wrote:
> I couldn't believe that a university such as Harvard (or any)
> would be throwing out records.  Has anybody heard of a similar
> situation before with a university?   Ron

I don't know of any American university where this HASN'T happened.  It
happened at every university I have ever been at, Temple, Northwestern,
Univ of Missouri-Columbia, CUNY, Morehead State University, etc. etc. 
>From what I have been told, it will probably even happen at Syracuse
University where the IDIOTS have taken over one of the world class
archives and have no idea what the hell they are doing.  I spoke to Mort
Savada's son while at ARSC and he has resigned himself to the
possibility of the mishandling of his father's donation. (They were the
only ones who would take it!!!) 

What scares me about your report is that last year I spoke with Eric
Anderson's brother who said that his mother (the widow of composer Leroy
Anderson) was considering donating a big part of Eric's collection
(which contains a large portion of George Blacker's collection) TO
HARVARD.  But I don't have their contact info here -- but I have to warn
them. 

Sorry to say it, but NEVER donate ANYTHING to ANY American college or
university.  They are ALL run by IDIOTS.  I have never met a university
president who wasn't a doofus.  

To quote David Lennick, "Aaaaaaaak!"  

Mike (dumpster diver and proud of it) Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com


From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>

Aaaaaaaak!

Okay, got that out of my system..and I'm sure it's not unusual, whenever
space 
is needed for something "more important". About 5 years ago I hauled
away a 
couple of thousand 78s from Hobart-William Smith College in Geneva NY.
They 
weren't free but they were the next best thing, about 3 for a buck, and
most of 
this stuff had been part of a Carnegie Collection that had hardly been
played. 
But at least in this case, a dealer was notified and he called a
collector (me) 
and a few other people got in on the deal.

dl

Ronald Lees wrote:
> I went to look at a "small" 78 collection last week and when I arrived the
> seller told me that her father just recently picked these records out of a
> dumpster at Harvard. I started looking at them and many of them had stickers
> on the sleeves showing archive and catalog numbers. In addition there were
> many acetates of Harvard choirs, bands conductors etc. as well as a few "Ivy
> League" 78s of the Harvard University Bands.
> 
> 
> 
> I couldn't believe that a university such as Harvard (or any) would be
> throwing out records. I spoke with the sellers father for a few minutes
> before I left and he told me that Harvard was going digital and when the
> people he was working with (I think he was working construction on site) saw
> the records in the dumpsters they were all scrambling to get their hands on
> some. He was only able to get a few hundred but there were some nice records
> there.a few blues some real nice jazz and classical and of course some
> broken records as well.
> 
> 
> > I couldn't believe that a university such as Harvard (or any) would be
> throwing out records. 
> Has anybody heard of a similar situation before with a university?
> 
> 
> 
> Ron