[NHCOLL-L:336] Re: Further on the accession by committee question

[Stuart Fullerton]

> library.  Natural history accessions result from donations and field
> collections.  Natural history curators would love to have a separate system
> for their acquisitions but logistically it would be a fiasco.  However, we

why. if you are used to only 200 - 300 accessions a year, how can that
same group of mind set work with accessions of thousands of specimens?
Natural history curators have been dealing (at least entomological
curators) with this problem for years and know how to do it in the best
fashion that works for their collections.

i can build a mental picture of a collections committee sitting down to
look at and review the addition of "the chair washington sat in to -----"
but i have a hard time with the picture of a collections committee of an
art person, a history person, a tansportation person, and an architect
dealing with one or more collections of several thousand specimens each
most of which are less than an inch long.

certainly a set of boundries or parameter such as we have e stablished
here for the arthropod collection (the 1100 acre campus, the county, and
the 5 surrounding counties - e.g. a good regional reference and study
collection of the area - which also allows us to be the best specific
study of this particular area that there is in the world. (we are not on
compitition with "world class" ((what ever that trite term means))
collections) thus providing the basis of a fuller understanding of the
ecologic and bio-diversity functions of this region, and providing a basis
of enlargment of the educational aspects of the collections in general on
both a casual pass through basis and also of the serious student of the
collections.  this could not happen if each and every addition had to pass
through a committee. housing and work space are always a problem. but that
is one of the functions of a department chair, a dean of a college, or the
director of the museum to solve. today in the world of natural history
collections the feeling of these folks is to condense, "downsize",
minimize, bottomline, and otherwise stiffle scientific discovery because
these committes prefer not to do what needs to be done.  "we do not need
43 Rembrant paintings, or "just how many chairs that Washinton sat in do
we need?"  The next step is to stop the additions, dismiss the staff
including even a pure preservation care taking crew, send it on to someone
else, or throw it in the trash cause we do not understand its importance.
I know of many institutions major, and minor that have had, or are having
just these problems with their natural history collections. ever more and
more collections seem to be catering to the committee that wants to keep
thing in an:: "alive, vibrant, busy, hands-on, relevant, inovative,
cutting-edge, does-it-bring-in-the-people-adding=money-to-the-coffers,
showcase condition.

ah - enough of this. i will not rant on about committee actions the like.
I have some wonderful volunteers to deal with today, some badgering of the
Friends-of-the-bugcloset to do, a meeting with dept chair to see if we can
get a second electricl circuit installed to stop blowing circuit breakers,
and several hundred specimens that need labels and data base numbers
affized.  so i had better get with it.

good luck in the hunt for solutions to your problem. you are certainly not
alone in your problems and quest. say hello to the folks over in
entomology for me.  ave you folks taken on the collections of the Museum
of Ntl Hist on Gilbert Ave and the building on Wade Oval Drive???  if so
good luck, you have already fallen into the "downsizeing" syndrome.

cheers!  rof



 > 
> We don't have a Collections Committee of our Board.  The director, who comes
> from a history background, is used to the committee system and only wants to
> see those acquisitions that may provoke budget, political, space issues
> etc..  Basically, I see a committee of collections staff who would review
> all incoming acquisitions.  Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jane
> 
> Jane MacKnight
> Registrar and Director, Collections and Research
> Cincinnati Museum Center
> 1301 Western Avenue
> Cincinnati, OH 45203
> Tel: 513/287-7092
> Fax: 513/287-7095
> Email: jmacknight at cincymuseum.org
> 
> 

Stuart M Fullerton ROF, Research Associate in charge of Arthropod
Collections (UCFC), Biology Dept. University of Central Florida, Orlando,
Florida, 32816, USA. stuartf at pegasus.cc.ucf.edu