Q: "Your OPINIONS :) on ferret experts was interesting.  I've gathered
that you can collected quite a few articles on ferrets.  Do you allow
people to borrow from your library?  ...How can we see what you have?"
 
A: The only people who can "see what I have" are single ladies who know
who sang "Werewolves in London." Aahh-oooo!
 
This question has bothered me for quite a long time, and I am not
sure how to address it.  I own a TREMENDOUS amount of ferret and
ferret-related material, ranging from newsletters, to newspaper
clippings, to books, to artwork, to songs, and even video clips.  I
have private photos of people holding ferrets, some dating to the 1880s,
and letters asking about ferrets dating to the Civil War.  This vast
collection is archivally housed in 18 4-drawer file cabinets, 24 file
storage boxes (awaiting the purchase of additional metal file cabinets),
and covers some 47 feet of shelving.  Get online with ANY university
library, the Library of Congress, or ANY public library, WORLDWIDE!, and
compare their ferret (and related) listings to my library, and you will
find mine is superior.  For example, excluding personal communications
and untrackable unpublished data, I own EVERY citation ever mentioned by
the CaCaLand Fishin' Gestapo.  I own EVERYTHING ever published (relating
to ferrets) by the mustelid experts on my list.  AND I have *READ* them!
 
This collection represents a tremendous amount of value.  For example, I
recently bought a copy of the book "Mustelids in a Modern World", setting
me in the hole for more than $100, which is only one book out of 47
ferret-related books I purchased last year (check WordCat and see how
many Libraries own the book!).  I buy everything I can off eBay, which
isn't easy since some collectors are more than willing to cough out 10,
20, even 50 times what the item is worth just so they can hang it on
their wall.  I have almost completed a comprehensive collection of
British ferret books, and have just turned my attention to Spanish,
French and German books in the genre.
 
I do not consider this material as being in my ownership as much as I
think of myself as a temporary curator of a reference collection that
belongs to the ferret community as a whole.  I have long desired to find
a permanent home for the material, but in all honesty, there isn't a
ferret organization in existence that I would currently trust with it.
At the moment, parts are willed to the Library of Congress with the rest
to the Smithsonian.
 
As for sharing the material, I have always done so on a case-by-case
basis, only if the material is not locally available.  For example,
recently a person in Los Angeles asked for materials that were available
in 12 or more local libraries.  Rather than sending the material, I
instead sent them an online search of those libraries, so that they
could copy what they needed.
 
I would LOVE to help create an international organization that would be
ultimately responsible for the collection (I've toyed with "Ferret Union
for Resources, Education and Training"--FURET), but there just doesn't
seem to be a high interest in building, maintaining, and curating such a
collection.  I once tried starting a mailing list (the Geeks List), but
group members seemed more interested in getting help rather than helping,
and I grew tired of promises for resources that never materialized.  When
I can afford it, I plan on buying the program to make PDF files (Mac OS
X) so that each file can be scanned, made into a PDF, and sent out
immediately on request.
 
But that brings up the biggest problem of them all.  Who pays for using
the collection?  If I sell copies of the material, even at zero profit or
a loss, I infringe on copyright laws.  I can GIVE away copies for private
scholarship, but how can I afford hundreds of requests?  That doesn't
even account for the problem of time.  Just finding a 4 page paper,
scanning it to jpgs, and sending them as emails could take a half hour.
What if I get 100 requests?  Currently, my only solution is to be VERY
selective, and give the lion's share of my support to those who have
actually made materials available to me.
 
I am considering publishing a bimonthly scholarly newsletter on important
ferret issues (with bibliography), and tossing in a reference, photo or
piece of artwork.  The newsletter would be made available free to those
who contribute materials such as newspaper clippings, newsletters,
magazines, properly identified photographs of ferret events, artwork,
books, or whatever.  As material trickled in, it would be incorporated
into following newsletters, so one region's problems and solutions can
teach all of us.  I just don't know if such effort would be in demand.
 
Bob C
[Posted in FML issue 4051]