0.9 Chapter seven: retrenchment and the struggle for survival, 19  (Page 2/20)

For its part, the NYPL agreed that the Society's library collections were com­plementary to its own. In fact, because of the strength of the N-YHS library collections, the NYPL had shaped its acquisition policy so as not to duplicate the Society's holdings. Loss of local scholarly access to the N-YHS's collections was viewed by the NYPL as an intolerable prospect. The NYPL's chief interest in help­ing the Society, then, was to ensure that those collections remained publicly accessible and in New York City.

Closing the loan proved to be far more difficult than announcing an agree­ment in principle. In conducting its due diligence, five members of the NYPL's financial staff spent three weeks working full time at the Society with Sciolla, learn­ing all they could about the Society's financial situation and evaluating the Soci­ety's capacity to repay the loan.

The Society's precarious financial condition mandated that collateral for the loan was going to have to come from the Society's collections. Because of that necessity, the Society had to prove that it was acting within its rights to sell any works it was offering as collateral. In other words, the works had to be legally deaccessioned. Aside from being controversial, this fact meant that the attorney gen­eral would once again have to become involved to ensure that proper procedures were being followed.

The process of identifying collections for deaccessioning proved to be com­plicated, time-consuming, and expensive. Even after Hotchner and the museum staff and Ashton and the library staff had identified valuable items that were peripheral to the Society's core mission, it was difficult to determine whether the Society held clear legal title to the items to be deaccessioned. For many of the So­ciety's early acquisitions, record keeping had been poor, and the provenances of items were not clear. Not only was this identification process painstaking and slow, but because of the sensitivity of the issue, the advice of outside counsel was required to help staff members make these determinations.

With Ashton and Hotchner focused on deaccessioning, Sciolla, whose title was changed from chief financial officer to chief operating officer at the De­cember board meeting, concentrated on trying to manage the Society's cash flow. Sciolla canvassed donors of various restricted appropriations to urge them to remove restrictions on their grants so that the funds could be used to meet general operating expenditures during the transition period. In addition, Sciolla was holding payment on nearly $300,000 in invoices, telling creditors that they would be paid when the NYPL loan became available. Finally, she continued to pursue the cash payments on contributions that had been promised but had not yet been received. Even with these steps, there was some question whether the Society would be able to make its Christmas Eve payroll. In early December, the Society had only $55,000 left in its unrestricted account; its projected December payroll was nearly $140,000.