Analysis of 'a Clash of Will" by A.J Anderson

Case Study: A Clash of Wills

A donator named Mr. Durrell made a 10000 dollar donation in his wills to ’Dickson Public Library’ with some conditions:

• The money could only be used to buy jazz recordings.

• And donator’s own collection of jazz recordings—some CDs and tapes, mostly vinyl records are to form the basis of collection which has to be named by him.

As the Library could not afford new books in almost a year because of budget deficiency, this donation seemed exciting to the director of the library. However, things were not as simple as she thought. The conditions of the donation made it clear that the money could only spent by buying jazz records only, though the library needed other important materials to buy. Moreover, the library has also its own gift policy that gifts are to be treated as same standards of selection of other materials that come into collection.

Options:

• Part of the money to buy jazz recordings and part to but other materials.

(This cannot be done as donator was very exact about the money to be spent)

• Accept the money and the recordings.

• Refusing both.

• Accept the recordings and take from them the ones that the library could use and sell the rest as a book sale. Then accepting the money, spending some of it to buy jazz recordings and some on things the library really needed. (Seem unethical)

How to manage: My Perspective

I think library should accept the gift and money. And the director should make it clear to the attorney and family of the donators that library has its own selection policy about any material that comes to library collection. So the donator’s jazz-recordings collection will also go through the same process. And selected recordings (CDs, tapes and phonographs whatever) will only be included in the library section that is to be named by donator. The initial processing of that section needs a certain amount of money that can be spent from 10000 dollar cash. Then library can spend rest of the money to...