Loans

Loan Procedures

Twenty-four months prior to installation, determine all sources for the material to be included in the exhibition: your own collection, institutions private or public, the Club's, as well as private collectors. Institutions will rarely lend to individuals; The Grolier Club will request and manage loans on your behalf. 

The Club will prepare loan requests only with the following information fully provided:

To complete our requests, we will ask you for:

• Full contact information for each lender, including address, telephone and/or fax, e-mail.

• An itemized list of loan items, including,

  • title and other catalogue information, 

  • reference or accession numbers, 

  • spread dimensions, 

  • page openings for books and mat/frame dimensions for works on paper,

  • and other information as required by the lending institution.

NOTE: Some lenders, particularly institutions, have stringent loan requirements, which in some cases the Grolier Club may or may not be able to meet. If you choose to request items from these lenders, you must notify the Exhibitions Manager Committee on Public Exhibitions as soon as possible to determine the feasibility of the loan, and all loan requests will be subject to policy review. 

For example, the Club's Exhibition Hall is the primary function space for our events, during which we regularly provide food and drink for the enjoyment of our members and their guests. Many institutions prohibit the presence of food and drink in spaces where their loaned materials are exhibited, a condition that precludes loans from being exhibited in our exhibition space that you might otherwise plan to secure. 

Timeline

We will write to these institutions and individuals from whom you wish to borrow. Institutions that require trustee approval to lend generally require at least an eight-month lead time; therefore your requests for loans (including title and other catalogue information, reference or accession numbers, and dimensions along with full contact information of lenders) must be submitted in writing to the Exhibitions Manager no later than 12 months in advance of the show. 

We must be kept apprised of any revisions to your initial loan request, as this will influence the insurance policy for loaned materials. Please copy us on all revised loan requests. We can accommodate revisions no later than three months in advance of an installation. 

Regardless of lender (personal, private, or institutional), we will not accept additional loans that are not reflected on your final shipping manifest and loan agreement. 

Transit

As we receive responses from lenders, we will keep you informed of arrangements for loan transportation to and from the Club. Loan transportation is often a substantial component of an exhibition budget; we will need shipping estimates well in advance to ensure that costly overruns are prevented. We are happy to recommend shippers with whom we have worked (See Packing & Shipping); be advised that institutions may have preferred shippers associated with loans.

Insurance

The Club provides wall-to-wall insurance coverage for all materials itemized with insurance values on your master exhibition list. Please note that we can only provide this coverage with a signed loan agreement and an itemized list of insurance values in hand. We cannot accept materials that are not included on this list, and we will need a complete list before shipment begins. Once we have this list, our insurer will issue each lender a certificate of insurance.

Fees

Please also be aware that some loans, particularly those from institutions, may have associated loan fees. Please clarify the status of these fees with the lender prior to the loan request. Please see "Other Agreements" in Budget and Billing for further details regarding obligation of loan fees.