[NHCOLL-L:1880] UNA Museum terminates geology activity

[William Douglas Boyce]

Greetings,

I'm forwarding this with the permission of Ed Landing.

All the best,

Doug Boyce
___________________________________________________________________________
On Wednesday, April 2, 2003 at 21:41:57 NST, Ed Landing 
<ELANDING at MAIL.NYSED.GOV> wrote:

Letters to the Editor
Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff, AZ

To the Editor:

The Museum of Northern Arizona's turfing out of entrepenurial staff
(who raised ca. $100K a year for their work) and its closing of the
geology and fossil collections has made international news. MNA will
also be in breach of federal guidelines on heritage preservation.

Sad that a state whose early economic development (mining) was based on
understanding geology and whose future tourist dollars will be based in
part on its modern and ancient (fossil) natural history chooses to
extinguish access to its heritage. It is also sad that the Museum fails
to understand that its collections need nearly constant hands-on work to
conserve them (fossils and rocks fall apart if humidity and temperature
are not watched) and make them available for research, teaching, and
exhibits.

This "vertical cut" in staffing (2.5 positions, with one of these
positions grant-supported at no cost to Arizonans!) also means that the
University of Northern Arizona is no longer a place with resources in
depth that I can recommend to students who want to do a degree in earth
science. The staffing cuts mean that endowment celebrating the heritage
of America's most famous vertebrate paleontologist, Dr. Edwin H.
Colbert, should be turned over to a more receptive, responsible, and
appreciative institution.

Collections decay quickly, "migrate elsewhere" through theft, etc.,
without curatorial care. The use of "visiting scientists" will in no way
make up for the dedication and institutional memory represented by the
long-term employees to be kicked out. To be responsible to the federal
financial support and consequent mandates under which these collections
were collected and curated, MNA must turn these collections over to a
responsible, accredited museum in the very near future.

Sincerely,




Dr. Ed Landing
   State Paleontologist & Curator of Paleontology
Center for Stratigraphy and Paleontology
New York State Museum
Albany, NY 12230
tel. 518-474-5816 (messages)
fax 518-486-3696
elanding at mail.nysed.gov
___________________________________________________________________________
-- 
Mr. W. Douglas Boyce, M.Sc., P.Geo., Provincial Paleontologist,
Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Mines and Energy,
Geological Survey Division, Regional Geology Section,
P.O. Box 8700, St. John's, NL, Canada A1B 4J6

Phone:	(709) 729-2163
Fax:	(709) 729-4270
Email:	wdb at zeppo.geosurv.gov.nf.ca
WWW:	http://www.geosurv.gov.nf.ca/mapping/boyce.html
	http://www.geosurv.gov.nf.ca/education/fossils/index.html
	http://www.canadianrockhound.com/summer97/cr9701301_nfld.html
	http://www.spnhc.org/documents/fossilprotection.htm
___________________________________________________________________________