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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I want to echo the comments made by many others on the list regarding the need to read and comment on Information
Collection Request (ICR) entitled "Documenting, Managing and Preserving DOI Museum </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Property Housed in Non-Federal Repositories." Comments on this are due on 5 March. This is an important
issue for the US collections community. </span><br style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Before you do this, you should read the documents - including the supporting materials - carefully and understand why the information is needed and what you might be asked by agency staff
or their contractors if this request is approved. There's still quite a lot of confusion in some quarters. For example, this is an information request,
<u>not</u> a new regulation, or a law. It doesn't place any legal obligations on you that you didn't have before, and while there are real issues regarding ownership of certain categories of specimen, this ICR will not change the situation with regard to ownership.</span><br style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<font face="Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Most of the comments published to date have focused on the negative aspects of this information request in terms of increased reporting burden... appropriately so. But you need to understand exactly what that
burden will be <u>for you</u>; remember, you almost always have the opportunity to say that you don't have, or cannot easily obtain the information. </font><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">You should also
take some time to weigh the burden against the ways in which your collections might benefit from this exercise. Can it be used to highlight problems or challenges that you face? Will it let you begin a dialogue with your colleagues in the agencies about the
need for additional resources for curating the collections held at your institution? Will it help them make a better argument to their own management for these resources?</span>
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<div>Something else that might not be clear from the documents is that <span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">once an ICR is approved, it must be reapproved by OMB every 3 years. That means that everyone concerned can evaluate
what has happened over the intervening years and then comment on it when the ICR reapproval is again published in the Federal Register. So If the process turns out to be excessively burdensome in practice, there's another opportunity to have it amended.</span></div>
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</font><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Within SPNHC we've been taking time to review the documentation and talking to our colleagues in the agencies and other non-federal organizations. We''ll be making a formal response
later this week and I would urge anyone with an interest in seeing these collections better documented and managed to do the same.</span></div>
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<div>Chris</div>
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<div>PS: if you haven't seen DOI's supporting documentation for this request, here's how to access it:</div>
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<div style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Go to </font><a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=201412-1084-001" target="_blank" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;">http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=201412-1084-001</a></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br>
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<div style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Once there, click on the "View Information Collection (IC) List" link to access the Checklist and other materials and the "View Supporting Statement
and Other Documents" link to access the Supporting Statement (it's the first item in the "ICR Documents" list on that next page).</span></div>
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<div><font size="2" face="Tahoma">=============================</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="Tahoma">Dr. Christopher A. Norris</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="tahoma">Division of Vertebrate Paleontology</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="tahoma">Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="tahoma">170 Whitney Ave.</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="tahoma">PO Box 208118</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="tahoma">New Haven, CT 06520-8118</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="tahoma"></font> </div>
<div><font size="1" face="Tahoma">Past President<br>
Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections<br>
<a href="http://www.spnhc.org/">www.spnhc.org</a></font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="Tahoma"></font> </div>
<div><font size="1" face="Tahoma">Tel. +1(203)-432-3748</font></div>
<div><font size="1" face="tahoma">Fax. +1(203)-432-9816</font></div>
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