Detroit Public Library Defends Stewardship of Valuable Collection of Baseball Memorabilia
By Bob Warburton Jul 5, 2011
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/hom...dship.html.csp
Answering criticism leveled during a recent spate of media coverage, the Detroit Public Library's Coordinator for Special Collections said baseball memorabilia donated by the late Ernie Harwell, a collection valued at some $4 million, has proper public access, is not under utilized as a tourist draw and is in no way vulnerable to theft.
Harwell, a Detroit Tigers broadcaster for 42 years and one of the city's most beloved sports icons, donated his sprawling trove of baseball books, rare photographs, artifacts, scorecards and other publications to the Detroit Public Library starting in 1966. It's believed to be one of the nation's largest baseball memorabilia collections, perhaps second only to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Harwell died in May 2010 at the age of 92, about six years after The Lulu and Ernie Harwell Room opened at the library's main branch.
The smallish exhibition room, named in part for Harwell's wife, still houses a sampling of the broadcaster's wares, including a 1968 World Series ring, four seats from the old Tiger Stadium and some vintage uniform jerseys. The space can be toured on an appointment-only basis. Other materials are available for perusal in a separate research room.
Recently, the Harwell collection has come under scrutiny, starting with a June 9 article in the Detroit News headlined, "$4 million in Harwell memorabilia put at risk by Detroit library." Critics charged that recent staff layoffs at the Detroit Public Library threatened the collection's care and that Harwell's dream of using his memorabilia as a tourist draw was being strangled by the appointment-only policy that leaves the exhibition area mostly under lock and key.
The article spawned local news follow-up reports, along with other unfavorable online articles. A passage from an online article in Sports Collectors Daily stated, "Harwell's massive - and valuable-accumulation is barely accessible to the public and much of it remains uncatalogued because of huge budget cuts within the Detroit Public Library system."
Mark Bowden, who heads the library's many special collections, rebutted such accusations.
"What I try to communicate to people when they visit is, this is a working collection," he said. "This is in no way meant to be a museum."
Harwell broadcast major league baseball games for 55 years, but gained the most fame during his long stint on radio and TV covering the Tigers. He became a celebrated baseball historian, and his donation to the Detroit Public Library includes 6,000 books, 13,000 photographs and thousands of newspaper clippings.
"The collection has two components," Bowden said. "It has the exhibit room. But the vast bulk of the collection is Ernie's personal library. It's a research collection. The research collection is open 40 hours a week. It's only the exhibition room that's available by appointment. Sometimes people come by without an appointment; we almost never turn anyone down that way."
A round of layoffs did pare the library staff about four months ago, but Bowden insisted that did not affect the public's ability to see and use the Harwell cache. "That room has never been open permanently. It's always been by appointment," he said, noting one exception: "After Mr. Harwell passed away, the library gave us enough staff to keep the room open for one or two weeks, 40 hours a week."
Although one library staffer, who was laid off, did assist with items in the collection, Bowden added, "That collection has never had a dedicated staff. That collection has never had a curator, so to speak."
Gary Spicer, a lawyer in Grosse Point, Mich., and Harwell's longtime friend and business associate, defended the Detroit Public Library's handling of the collection, saying he is "not unhappy at all" with the way memorabilia items are currently presented and protected.
"They've done a remarkable job with very limited resources," Spicer said. "I absolutely do not blame them, because they do not have the staffing." He called the recent media stories "overblown."
Spicer said his goal now is to raise $1 million for an endowment that would keep the Harwell room open during library hours. The fund would also pay a dedicated librarian, responsible solely for the baseball collection. Spicer also envisions a traveling exhibition of the Harwell artifacts.
But the current economic climate, particularly in the recession-ravaged Motor City, creates a mammoth obstacle for Spicer's fundraising efforts.
"Right now, Detroit is probably the last city in America to try and conduct a capital campaign," he said.
With Spicer's sought-after endowment almost certainly not attainable in the near future, Bowden said the library's immediate plan is to complete a digital reproduction of all Harwell materials and make them available online for researchers and other fans.
"In the here and now, what's most reachable is online access. We have made some headway on that," said Bowden, adding that the Detroit Public Library's website must be upgraded before that is possible. It is unclear when that will happen. But so far, 5,300 items have been digitized, Bowden said.