Monday, June 08, 2009

"We can't save all our treasures"

Harry Themal -- Delaware News Journal columnist since 1959 -- started out to write "a column deploring the decision by the Wilmington Library to deaccession ... its marvelous portfolio of 14 N. C. Wyeth paintings for 'Robinson Crusoe' and its 20 volumes of Edward Curtis photographs." But his "exploration of how the sales could have been prevented" led him "to the reluctant conclusion" that the decision is "inevitable and correct":

"The sale would provide much needed money for repairs and endowment for the 86-year-old building on Rodney Square; no Santa Claus is around to stop the sale and give the library its needed money."

I wrote about the sale last month here.