<div dir="ltr">David (and all),<div><br></div><div>I think I must have read this differently from you. Maybe you feel the case needs to be made differently, but particularly on pages 7-10 I felt that the take home message was (a) museums have lots of specimens that (b) researchers use to understand nature's patterns and processes (including climate change and how nature impacts people directly/mentally/physically/etc) and (c) those same museums also educate the public on the findings of researchers which couldn't have been done without the collections. Thus (d) people should really care about nature and want to spend more time within it and they can (e) learn more in their museums and (f) help to pass it on by going with offspring, grandkids, etc.</div><div><br></div><div>Maybe it'd be interesting to survey the general public to see what their take home message is from this presentation. Did they already do that?</div><div><br></div><div>Kirsten</div><div><br></div><div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><font face="'times new roman', serif" color="#006600">Kirsten E. Nicholson, Ph.D<br><br><i><font size="1">Assoc. Prof. Biology and Curator of Natural History<br>Dept. of Biology Museum of Cultural and Natural History<br>217 Brooks Hall 103 Rowe Hall<br>Central Michigan Univ. Central Michigan University <br>Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859<br>989-774-3758 989-774-3829</font></i></font></div></div><div class="gmail_signature"><font face="'times new roman', serif" color="#006600"><i><font size="1"><br></font></i></font></div><div class="gmail_signature"><font face="'times new roman', serif" color="#006600"><i><font size="1"><br></font></i></font></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 7:51 AM, Schindel, David <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:schindeld@si.edu" target="_blank">schindeld@si.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">Hi, Andy,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">In reading this very attractive document, I was struck by the ABSENCE of an argument for collections. Rather, the document advocates for museums and their role in raising public awareness. No question that
they are important for public awareness of Nature, extinction, environmental change, but I found no connection to collections. In fact, other than mentioning the total number of specimens in the region’s museums and two page that describe what the collections
contain and what goes on ‘behind the exhibits’ there’s no focus on the use of collections or their relevance to the public education mission.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">This is not to say that we shouldn’t be advocating for museums as centers of education, advocacy and infotainment. That being said, based on the text alone (setting aside what we all know and believe), a general
reader might ask why good museum space is being used for collections rather than public exhibits, since the collections don’t seem important for exhibits and education. I can imagine that this is a question that many smaller regional and local museums must
answer. It would be very interesting to hear ideas from people in smaller museums on how they make this connection to the collections for the public and funders.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">David<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> </span></p></div></div></blockquote></div>
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