Ten questions for John Marszalek

"If your history is not accurate and truthful, you're basing the future on a false past." - John Marszalek

Brooks Simpson takes a good look at the Grant Association Papers and reminds us that the engine driving their relocation was the settlement of a law suit. Looking through his news links, I saw a continued pattern of poor reporting.

Let me supply the media with questions to ask John Marszalek at their next opportunity.

(1) What is your tenancy deal with MSU and is it conditional or permanent?

(2) Is this an endowed library? Details, please.

(3) Is there a comprehensive index of the collection? If not, what is your timeframe for developing one?

(4) What is your timeframe for getting the collection online?

(5) What percentage of your documents are under restrictive loan covenants that prevent scholars from seeing them?

(6) How would you express the ratio of collected to uncollected material (e.g. "we think we have collected X percent of what's out there").

(7) The celebrations and festivities included few Grant scholars - why is that?

(8) You are paying scholars $500 to visit the collection to do research; how many scholars have taken you up on this? Where does this money come from?

(9) Your wife is involved with this project - what is her role?

(10) An MSU press release says "MSU President Mark E. Keenum recently received a letter from Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero of the National Archives congratulating the university on the presidential library designation." Is this Grant library part of the National Archives system or is it a private library? There is no mention of it here.