The statement from the writer of the e-mail concerning the "dumping of
manuscripts" by the NY State Library is,quite simply, totally false. One
notes that the writer does not provide a scintilla of evidence, but only
remembers a story from the past (somewhere in his/her memory bank, one
guesses). I was the Senior Librarian at the time of the move of the State
Library's manuscripts collections and I can state emphatically that no
manuscripts of any sort, time, place or whatever were ever put into the
trash. Let the writer of that e-mail provide some specific examples of proof
if such remarks are going to be made via a large listserve such as this. The
writer of the e-mail, who may even consider him/herself an historican should
know that when one makes broad statements without providing any proof, anyone
reading/hearing those statements can dismiss them as pure rhetoric without
any proof. One of the parts of e-mail that I find pretty reprehensible is the
tendency of writers to make broad generalizations without proof and then
expect their readers to believe the tripe. I do not consider myself an
historian; rather I am a librarian and archivist and over many years at the
State Library I added tens of thousands of archival documents, manuscripts,
books and other material. I did not and I know that no one else put any
manuscripts in a dump at the time of the move to the Cultural Education
Center.

James Corsaro
Retired Associate Librarian, Manuscripts and Special Collections.