[Nhcoll-l] Urgent: University of Louisiana at Monroe Museum of Natural History facing imminent divestment or destruction

Wed Mar 29 11:10:09 EDT 2017

Hello,

                I’ve been following this frightening thread with some interest. Something popped into my head while reading. If the administration says they are going to basically dumpster everything following a very short amount of notice, is there any legal or environmental concerns with disposing of these specimens in the US? While it is a teaching collection, I believe but feel free to correct me, there must be some sort of mandated disposal process especially for wet specimens. As a field everything is moving to safer and safer storage liquids but large amounts of almost anything could be deemed a danger. Could staff relate to the administration or get whatever monitoring organisation (EPA?) to write a letter detailing the dangers and legalities of simply tossing the items? Are certain specimens covered under licences or legislation that has to be followed? Maybe this could get some more time to find a home for the specimens?

William Shepherd
Collections Officer
Swift Current Museum
44 Robert Street West
Swift Current, Saskatchewan
S9H 4M9
Phone: 306-778-4815
Fax: 306-778-4818

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Paolo Viscardi
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 8:46 AM
To: Bentley, Andrew Charles <abentley at ku.edu>; Barry OConnor <bmoc at umich.edu>; nhcoll <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Urgent: University of Louisiana at Monroe Museum of Natural History facing imminent divestment or destruction

It strikes me that this is where wider sector advocacy comes in. Many collections have focussed on research and collections care rather than promoting the role of collections. In the UK when we see this sort of situation the community sends letters of support for the collection, occasionally having a positive effect on the decision-makers (particularly when some press reporting occurs).

In this case I would suggest that SPNHC, GCG and NatSCA prepare an open letter of support for the collection, highlighting the issue of the timescales and logistics involved in a collections move, then seek signatories to lend weight to it. Since there has been some reporting already it seems likely that such a letter will be picked up on by the press, which will serve the threefold purpose of offering support for this collection, getting some advocacy statements out there to help reinforce why collections are a valuable resource more generally, and it will be a visible reminder to other academic administrators that threats to collections can lead to bad press and have a negative impact on institutional reputation.

Would people on this list be willing to put their names to such a letter?

Paolo

On Wed, 29 Mar 2017, 15:13 Bentley, Andrew Charles, <abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>> wrote:
I don’t think that is necessarily true.  The administration has just been put between a rock and a hard place due to funding cuts and as we know, natural history collections are a prime target for such downsizing initiatives.  The decision was made that much easier by the lack of a public or research “face” to the museum.  How are they supposed to advocate for the museum’s collections when their website doesn’t even mention collections or research at all!!  There is no way of showing a need for the administration to take action to preserve the collections.

The biggest thing you need to do is make your collection/institution visible and promote and advocate for it at every opportunity. Become part of the collections community. There is no substitute for self-promotion. Your website and social media should sing your praises and showcase how valuable your collections are but they should also be accessible through web portals, aggregators etc. so that they can be effectively used by the research community. We do however need a fundamental shift in the way collections are perceived by the rest of our community - the researchers need to advocate for the collections they use and provide products created back to the collections (publications, Genbank sequences etc.), the aggregators need to do more for the collections that are part of their networks (provide user stats, cleanup tools and measures of collections worth) while publishers also need to work to make collection specimen citations more discoverable and NSF needs to provide more mechanisms for funding these collections that are a national and international treasure.

Andy

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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
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From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>] On Behalf Of Barry OConnor
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 8:57 AM

To: nhcoll <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Urgent: University of Louisiana at Monroe Museum of Natural History facing imminent divestment or destruction

If the Facebook post can be taken at "face" value, it sounds like the administration actively wants to destroy the collections. A German colleague told me years ago about a museum who hired a new head who didn't see the need for research collections. As it was told, he personally helped toss the specimens into the dumpsters.
Louisiana isn't known for the quality of its educational system. A recent study (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__wallethub.com_edu_states-2Dwith-2Dthe-2Dbest-2Dschools_5335_&d=DwIGaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=3fd4phHlayc7Zsw6_4f0IclSrUzUlLq4kVqL0IoAAYk&s=arhI8SBqcP3mnt5v17tH9VqQA9jY4i6G8wJOdzdeEIs&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__wallethub.com_edu_states-2Dwith-2Dthe-2Dbest-2Dschools_5335_&d=DwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=0v18NpK8Vglr7xqP95ajQMRdpJ5O1qPNQzsn_qn9AdY&s=sQLlOlHfpT5poqnCB8uPkF7Est2XwGKyzndZQCZo15U&e=>) puts the state at #51 out of 51 states & DC evaluated for the quality of their pre-college systems. Given their priorities, seems like football should win out, although I don't know how many of this institution's players go on to successful NFL careers.
All the best! - Barry

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 9:22 AM, Furth, David <FURTHD at si.edu<mailto:FURTHD at si.edu>> wrote:
Great idea Chris.
This also happened with the Paleo collections at Princeton & Yale Peabody stepped up and sent a team to pack & transfer them. Also the insect collections at Indiana (so they could expand the sex institute there) and Yale also went to get them before the dumpster, etc., etc.

Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone

-------- Original message --------
From: Christine Johnson <cjohnson at amnh.org<mailto:cjohnson at amnh.org>>
Date: 3/29/17 16:13 (GMT+02:00)
To: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu<mailto:dyanega at ucr.edu>>, nhcoll <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Urgent: University of Louisiana at Monroe Museum of Natural History facing imminent divestment or destruction
Hi All,
I've been thinking about this ever-growing problem for a while, as now and again you hear of orphaned/abandoned collections.

What do people think of creating some kind of task force to come up with a list of the collections in the U.S. (iDigBio probably has most of these collections listed already) and reach out to them before things reach a crisis point? We could provide 'emergency' contact info for other institutions who would be willing to take the material. It may even serve to show the administration of the institutions that other places value the material and give them incentive to preserve them.

Just a thought.
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Yanega
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2017 9:00 PM
To: nhcoll <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Urgent: University of Louisiana at Monroe Museum of Natural History facing imminent divestment or destruction

FYI: I'm not affiliated in any way with ULM, I posted about this because it needs broader attention, immediately, and to see if anyone has ideas as to how the museum community might put pressure on the admins of ULM to re-think this terrible ultimatum.

Peace,

--
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315<tel:(951)%20827-4315> (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
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