[NHCOLL-L:3843] Fwd: Insurance value of museum specimens

[Carla Cicero]

NHCOLL and AVECOL - I am forwarding this on behalf of Dr. Muchai from Kenya.
Please respond to him directly if you have information on insuring museum
collections.

Thanks,
Carla

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Muchai Muchane <mmuchaim at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 2:39 AM
Subject: Insurance value of museum specimens
To: ccicero at berkeley.edu


Dear Dr. Carla Cicero,




I wish to introduce myself and the department I work for. My names are
Muchai Muchane. I work for the National Museums of Kenya, a leading
institution in natural heritage management and scientific research in Kenya,
as a Senior Research Scientist and Head of Zoology Department. I am also the
curator of the Bird Gallery and the Natural Diversity Gallery in the Nairobi
Museums.



We met at the inaugural workshop of the All Birds Barcoding Initiative
(ABBI) on September 8-9, 2005 at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ),
Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.



The Department of Zoology maintains a world-class collection of more than 4
million zoological specimens. Our specimen collection has over 3 million
invertebrates, 30,000 bird study skins, mammals (21,000), fish (43,000),
reptiles and amphibians (30,000). The Zoology Department also manages
Kenya's priceless collection of wet and dry tissues, frozen material, blood,
nests, eggs, slides and skeletons (12,000) and is rated as the best in
Africa. Our reference collections are used by researchers from all over the
world for taxonomical studies (including DNA studies), medical studies,
forensic sciences, and for reference by researchers, visiting students,
tourists, artists, other professionals and interested members of the public.
Other uses include the identification of zoological materials in connection
with endangered species legislation. The collection is also a depository for
collections from other parts of Africa.



Over 1000 species of mounted specimens are displayed in the bird Gallery and
Natural Diversity Gallery of the Nairobi Museum.



We wish to insure the objects/specimen within our collection and in the
gallery. However we do not know the methodology of assigning a value to each
of these materials for insurance purposes.



The purpose of this communication is to kindly request you to assist us with
information on how we can go about giving insurance value to our specimen
for insurance purposes.



Yours sincerely,


Dr. Muchane Muchai
Senior Research Scientist and Head of Zoology Department
National Museums of Kenya
P. O. Box 40658-00100
Nairobi, Kenya

Tel: 254-20-3742131/3742161 extn 243
Fax: +254-20-3741424
Email: mmuchaim at yahoo.com
mmuchai at museums.or.ke

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-- 
Carla Cicero, Ph.D
Staff Curator of Birds
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
3101 Valley Life Sciences Building
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3160
TEL: (510) 642-7868
FAX: (510) 643-8238

http://mvz.berkeley.edu/
http://carlacic.googlepages.com/home
http://ornisnet.org/
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