Bancroft et al. is a great idea, if you are at least moderately famous or have a collection that is (has had numbers of photos published, etc.), and can therefore sell a major library (e.g. Bancroft, CSRM, etc.) on accepting it. For most people, that won't work - there are only a handful of such libraries, and most don't have the staff to do the integration with their catalog & research systems for collections that drop from the sky. So what's Plan B for those of us that aren't famous?

Example: I was clearing out some of my old computer stuff and had the brilliant idea of offering it to the Computer Museum in Silicon Valley. All they ended up taking was one piece of software (important because it was the first commercially-available product of its type for Windows, complete copies are rare, and they didn't have one) and an unusual advertising brochure. I still have the rest, and may throw a floppy-disk-and-manual recycling party one of these days. Same goes with magazines on paper and any but the rarest books: zero (well, maybe scrap) value unless you can flog them on eBay.

For myself, not having a large, unusual, published, or well-organized collection, I'll probably just say to the extended family in the will: anybody want anything? What's left will most likely go to garbage. Too bad, but that's God's slide sorter.