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The Lincoln Museum will close its doors in June. But a new home for its $20 million collection will not be decided until early 2009, a spokeswoman for Lincoln Financial Foundation said Friday.
“This will be a very thorough process,” said Sandy Kemmish, director of the foundation.
“We expect to narrow it down to three organizations by August or September. Following that, we will visit their organizations by October or November. All this will happen before we make our decision.”
Representatives from 35 organizations – including the Allen County Public Library and the Friends of the Lincoln Museum – attended an informational meeting Thursday at Lincoln headquarters in Philadelphia, during which the process for choosing the new owner of the museum’s collection was discussed.
At the meeting, groups interested in acquiring all or part of the collection were told what will be expected of the new owner or owners.
“We’re interested in how they will provide access to the collection,” Kemmish said. “How will they store the collection? How will they work with other organizations to make the collection more visible? And we’re also interested in their financials. Do they have the resources to care for this vast collection?”
Interested organizations were asked to submit proposals by June 15. A consulting firm will assist Lincoln in choosing the new owner or owners of the collection.
Jeff Krull, director of the Allen County Public Library, attended the meeting Thursday. Representatives from the library are confident they will proceed with the acquisition process laid out by Lincoln at the meeting.
The library hopes to acquire the documents in the collection, which include one of the 13 original copies of the 13th Amendment, signed by Abraham Lincoln, and a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.
“For a long time, that was the focus of the Lincoln Museum, to act as a library for Lincoln documents,” said Cheryl Ferverda, community relations and development manager for the library. “That is our strength. So, it makes sense for us to focus on acquiring that portion of the collection.”
Although Kemmish did not name all of the organizations represented at the meeting Thursday, museums and organizations from as far away as California were in attendance, as were representatives from Indiana, she said.
But the library is hopeful that it will end up as one of the organizations in the running to house the Lincoln documents, Ferverda said.
“We are very cognizant that many other organizations are vying for this collection and, specifically, these documents,” she said. “But we would love to see those documents stay in Indiana and stay in Fort Wayne. And we would hope we would be the obvious place for that.”
edowns@jg.net
