[Nhcoll-l] users of natural history collections

[Kevin Winker]

Hi, Ann. We consider our loan queries and traffic and the resulting
publications to be a good guide to user needs. The ways in which these have
been changing generally in bird collections I addressed somewhat in:

Winker, K. 2004. Natural history museums in a post-biodiversity era.
BioScience 54:455-459.

We have since created a way to see how user publications themselves are
being used, giving us further insight into the collection's value:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v493/n7433/full/493480b.html

(How we made the profile is available on my website: www.kevinwinker.org)

Best,


On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Ann Pinzl <apinzl at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> **
>  Greetings,
>     We here in Nevada are about to undertake a survey of actual and
> potential herbarium users regarding their contemporary use patterns, needs,
> interests, and preferences.  We're interested in studies based on actual *
> user* *input*, not what we the curators/collection managers consider to
> be the case.  While our focus is on herbaria (which seem not to have had
> this kind of study made), it's very likely that such a study done in
> another discipline could give us some guidance.  This undertaking strikes
> me as an unusual approach to determining herbarium value. Is it? Does
> anyone know of any previous surveys/studies of this sort (utilizing user
> input)?
>     I thank you in advance.
>
> Ann Pinzl
>
>
> Ann Pinzl
> 4020 Hobart Road
> Carson City, Nevada 89703
> phone:  775-883-0463
> fax:   425-871-9817
>
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>


-- 
Kevin Winker
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Drive
Fairbanks, AK 99775
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