[NHCOLL-L:339] RE: Further on the accession by committee question

[Arthur H. Harris]

Michael Cooper wrote:
> 
> 
> And why should you? Acquisition and accession systems can easily be
> devised that will work for any type of object. Trouble is many natural
> history keepers see their collections as "specimens" and refuse to see
> any as "museum objects." To them one example of blobbus maximus is as
> good as any other. To history keepers, for instance, such an attitude is
> heresy: each object is unique. A balance has to be struck.
> 

An interesting divergence of viewpoint here.  In my experience, no
natural history person considers "one example of blobbus maximus" as
good as any other (unless, possibly, solely for exhibit).  The point
of acquiring and maintaining bological  research materials in large
part is that we need sufficiently large enough samples to be able to
characterize populations and that we need population data from
throughout the geographic and chronologic ranges of a taxon.  Each
specimen is indeed unique, having its own (usually) unique genetic
makeup and necessary to contribute to a usably-accurate
characterization of the population.  A commonly experienced attitude
on the part of non-biologists is, "Why on earth do you need more
than one of each kind?"  Many natural history types are suspicious
of strict, institution-wide acquisition policies set by
predominantly non-scientist administrations (and presumably
committees would fall into this same category) precisely because of
this attitude ("all mice are the same and you already have 42 of
them--why should you be allowed to obtain more?").

Difference in culture?  Difference in perceptions from within and
without a discipline?  ??

Art Harris
-- 
Laboratory for Environmental Biology
Centennial Museum (Natural and Cultural History)
University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX  79968-0915
phone (915)747-6985; fax (915)747-5808; aharris at utep.edu
http://www.utep.edu/leb     http://www.utep.edu/museum