[Nhcoll-l] Ranking of largest collections -- HELP

Tue Jan 27 18:50:25 EST 2015

The Bishop Museum's Research and Collection page - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.bishopmuseum.org_research_&d=AwIFAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=DuNDmGrhP6AMG_Il5balvQzlqCilKVSDnqM2Nm0E4C8&s=myCfFp4xwtT_fhzYWmZPs0aObwjFRJN3Odf_BZ61km8&e=  states that the museum has 24.7 million items.

Cheers/Jim

James H. Boone
Entomology Collection Manager
Bishop Museum 1525 Bernice Street
Honolulu. Hawaii
(808) 848-4196
jamesb at bishopmuseum.org

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Yanega
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 1:14 PM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Ranking of largest collections -- HELP

On 1/27/15 12:50 PM, Christopher Kemp wrote:
I don't know if this is empirically known or somewhat debatable, but I'm trying to make a list of the top 5 natural history collections in the US, and in the world. So, two lists. And I mean in terms of size, or number of specimens. Please weigh in. I'm assuming NMNH, AMNH, the Field for the US, but who's next? And in the world, I just don't know: the NMNH, the BMNH, the AMNH? I don't know. Share your thoughts. I'm at cjkemp at gmail.com<mailto:cjkemp at gmail.com>, or respond on the listserv.
The numbers are empirically known, though lists tend to be compiled by discipline. Using absolute numbers will be very misleading, and heavily bias your list towards arthropod-containing collections (e.g., our collection of 3 million places us around #20 in terms of the size of North American insect collections, for example; however, you won't find very many collections that have no insects but still have over 3 million specimens). Number of types will also be highest in insect-containing collections, as well.

I'm trying to recall the last time I saw a printed ranking of collections, and drawing a blank; however, the NMNH, AMNH, FMNH, LACM, and CAS are what I recall as the largest US collections, but there are others like the MCZ, Peabody, Carnegie, Bishop, and ANSP. You can look up virtually all major collections in Wikipedia for very up-to-date counts of holdings (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums-5Fin-5Fthe-5FUnited-5FStates&d=AwIFAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=DuNDmGrhP6AMG_Il5balvQzlqCilKVSDnqM2Nm0E4C8&s=OfJ4LTE8HeLL1yvQEHlDyiboE-ecBYPdoXy9Qx38EEU&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums-5Fin-5Fthe-5FUnited-5FStates&d=AwMC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=szR9bCje6egBBC1qphUuVAaNn0GQu45nso8-7-RDoKs&e=> for the US, and https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums&d=AwIFAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=DuNDmGrhP6AMG_Il5balvQzlqCilKVSDnqM2Nm0E4C8&s=p2OoqcRmJzZUv1g2X3ymCGT2WPwkISYZo3lNLUGJvbM&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums&d=AwMC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=ida5A6DumJmZHvhtnrqdNeMMZhCE9DCNmO9w0XG2JqY&e=> for worldwide), and derive rankings yourself.

I just checked the museums I recalled above, and they are indeed all quite large: NMNH - 126 million; LACM - 35 million; AMNH - 32 million; CAS - 26 million; FMNH - 24 million; Carnegie - 22 million; MCZ - 21 million; ANSP - 17 million; Peabody - 12 million. The Bishop Museum entry doesn't give their entire holdings, but their insect collection alone is 13.5 million. If all of the University of California's collections were housed together (UC Riverside, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, primarily) we'd also be on that list, with between 15-18 million as a group. I am not sure if any stand-alone herbaria qualify for inclusion, though many of the collections above include plant specimens. I believe that Paris is the all-around largest, by a significant margin, but the Wikipedia entry gives no estimate of their collection size. The NHM in London claims only 80 million, which seems lower to me than I would have supposed.

Hope this helps,

--

Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum

Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega

phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)

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