[NHCOLL-L:1899] Threatened Collections: one view

[Elaine Hoagland]

Here is the full version of the comment that I provided to USA Today.

Elaine Hoagland


March 28, 2003
Letter to Dan Vergano, USA Today re: closure/dissipation of natural history
collections --- written in response to his request for comment
By K. Elaine Hoagland

I am the former Executive Director of the Association of Systematics
Collections (1987-1997).  ASC represented natural history collections
throughout North America, including collections housed at colleges,
universities, federal and state agencies, and those that exist in
free-standing museums such as the American Museum in New York and the
Missouri Botanical Garden.  ASC has changed its mission somewhat, along with
its name --- it is now called the Natural Science Collections Alliance.

Natural history collections are basic infrastructure elements for basic
research.  They require a long-term commitment.  They are expensive to
maintain because they require space --- something at a premium at most
colleges and universities.  They need advocates at the local site, including
active researchers who are using the collections for research and teaching.
They also need caretakers --- collections managers.  

Unlike much of life in the modern world, natural history collections are not
about instant gratification and quick research results.  Instead they
provide reference points for an almost infinite number of research projects
now and in the future.  They are the only place one can go for a true
historical view of life on earth.  History is important for studying such
things as disease patterns (the epidemiology of the Hanta Virus outbreak was
figured out by studying tissues of small mammals in collections in New
Mexico) and environmental relationships (people looking at how to restore
prairie habitat in the nation's heartland rely on natural history
collections). 

Natural history collections are used by many people and they help just about
everybody, but no one wants to pay for them!  This is a classic "tragedy of
the commons" story.  This is why I believe that they must be included in the
category of "research infrastructure that needs support from the federal and
state governments".  Their use and their benefit are spread out broadly
across miles and across human generations.  Natural history collections
should be supported as we support telescope facilities and USGS geological
stations. 

The sciences that most often use collections, including systematics/taxonomy
and ecology, are not well-funded by national or state governments.  They are
having to compete within universities for faculty slots and other resources
with an ever expanding universe of scientific disciplines.  Those
disciplines that are more easily funded because of obvious and immediate
economic benefit (especially the health sciences and nanotechnology) are
those that win in this competition.  Some colleges have abandoned the
non-medical biological sciences entirely, or have shifted them from their
arts colleges to colleges of forestry or agriculture.  On a national level,
we are fighting for recognition of the fact that funding for the National
Institutes of Health (which has received very healthy increases) does not
mean that all of biology is OK; the fields of environmental biology and
taxonomy have suffered from stagnant funding or worse at most federal
agencies.

To make matters worse, there are few public advocates for natural history
research, especially among business sectors.  The drug companies,
agricultural interests, conservation groups, and others do benefit directly
from natural history collections, but they are not very visible as
supporters.  Scientists who build and study the collections are
traditionally reticent to go to others for help ---- they are not as skilled
in the techniques of "lobbying" or building public support as those in some
other scientific fields.

I also believe that natural history collections have suffered in the past
ten years or so from weak national and local leadership.  This is painful to
say, but examples abound --- e.g. the frequent turnover in the Directorship
of the National Museum of Natural History within the Smithsonian, and the
very public problems at the Smithsonian over its higher administration's
difficulty in understanding the research and education that are done there.
The same thing has happened at universities.  University presidents and
boards of trustees don't often understand natural history research and its
role in the modern university.  University politics are taking university
resources elsewhere.  Faculty positions are being reassigned.  Museums at
some institutions have been moved off campus, and out of sight is out of
mind.  Even at freestanding museums, boards of trustees have hired
businessmen and fundraisers as their presidents, and these individuals have
no background and little "feel" for natural history research and the power
of the collections that they are sitting on.

The public, however, loves natural history and loves natural history
museums.  There they can see the "real thing", much better than any computer
simulation.  The nature programs that are so popular on TV are directly
related to the collections and their active researchers.  Many amateur
scientists work at natural history collections, and some of them donate
substantial resources to support the collections.  Universities have not
made sufficient outreach to their publics to garner this kind of long-term
support and endowment.  I believe that the museums and collections that will
continue to be successful in the future will be those that make a
partnership with the public and with the non-science economic sectors that
are their (often invisible) clients. Professionals at natural history
collections need to present their case to the public while holding to
personal high standards for research and teaching productivity and quality.
They need to forge allies.  They need to share their wealth of knowledge
directly with the people who support them, rather than relying only on their
scientific publications to get the word out.

Some consolidation of natural history collections over time is inevitable
and not always a bad thing.  But in the U.S., we have already gone through
about as much consolidation as is healthy, especially in university
collections and centers for systematics research.  It would be a tragedy if
major centers of learning such as the Nebraska State Museum are lost.  If
all major collections were to be consolidated in the freestanding museums,
there would be no new collections-based researchers, and those very museums
would lose their flow of scientific curators.  They too would wither and
die.

In these times of financial exigency on campuses that are strapped by
falling state revenues, we need long-term vision.  We need some "angels".
Campus development offices should be clued in that this is a "do-able"
proposition.  Congress should be aware of its national responsibility to
support this national resource.  It's not too late.

Dr. K. Elaine Hoagland
National Executive Officer
Council on Undergraduate Research
(title for identification purposes)
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Vergano, Dan 
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2003 2:37 PM
To: elaine at cur.org
Subject: USA TODAY: request for comment


Ms. Hoagland,

I'm a science reporter for USA TODAY. We are working on a story about
closings of museum research and collections at the state level. You recently
posted a note to the Natural History listserv that a lot of researchers are
pointing towards as a good diagnosis of the overall trend. Could you
comment, or recommend anyone to comment, further on the root cause of this
trend? What makes natural science such a tempting target for budget cuts?
Any ideas would be most appreciated.

Dan Vergano
USA TODAY