When I was in Secondary school my library consisted of two classrooms and offered 6500 books. It was considered an average library in a small school.
My cousin Jess owns 7000 to 8000 books. All of them are new, and lovingly handled and stored in boxes with naphthalene balls. When I was visiting her family regularly in the 1990s, we have talked loosely about endowing a foundation to care for the collection. I told her that she needed a premise that is air-conditioned at least 8 hours a day. She needs a librarian or curator full time, that won't come cheap.
When another relative went into will and trust writing, we explored that avenue of leaving the collection to a trust company. Jess said she did not own enough cash for the initial outlay right at her projected death.
She did ask my youngest once if she could leave her substantial collection to be cared for in the future. As my daughter did not own a house, she declined the kind offer as she would have no premise to house the books. In fact, we had a good laugh together when my daughter commented that I would be a better person to care for the books since I was a school librarian for six years. Well, the fact is I am older than Jess 9 years, I may not outlive her that long.
Now my brother's son is 14 years old. He will co-own a three storey dwelling with his brother in the future. Ted loves books, he probably would be a good candidate to be considered by Jess to inherit her books. It is just as well I never have the funds to become a serious collector, else I would have a similar problem.
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