[NHCOLL-L:1972] Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Ironic Quotes from Bioscience

[David Richman]

Dear Doug,

Technically you are right-the NSCA is an organization representing museums
(including university museums) and the dues are steep for many
organizations. My experience is that they have been trying to represent
researchers as well as curators in regard to systematic collections. After
all what is the point of research collections if they do not involve
systematists? However, even if that point is conceeded, where are we going
to get a national organization that represents all taxonomic specialities
now that the Society of Systematic Biology has apparently gone totally
molecular?

It is necessary, in my view, to take help where we can find it (where 
ever that is- otherwise we will wind up like the scholars associated with
the museum and library of Alexandria, one of which, Hypatia,  had the
flesh taken off her bones by an angry mob.

Perhaps the situation is hopeless?  Every time I turn around another
museum bites the dust. While I'm not totally happy with it, the amateurs
MAY take over simply because we won't be able to function!

Sincerely,

David B. Richman
The Arthropod Museum
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM 88003

 On Tue, 24 Jun
2003, Doug Yanega wrote:

> Robin Panza wrote:
> 
> >  >>>From: carabid at mpm.edu [mailto:carabid at mpm.edu]
> >Unfortunately we do not have a single systematics organization that all of
> >us can regularly attend and participate in. We are split up into ologies,
> >entomology, botany,  mammology, ornithology, etc. The Society of Systematic
> >Biology used to be for systematists but now as far as I can tell from the
> >Journal is only for molecular workers. <<<
> >
> >What about the Natural Science Collections Alliance (formerly Association of
> >Systematics Collections)?  It is an association for professionals in NH
> >museums and collections, rather than specifically systematists (some of whom
> >are not associated with a collection), but it is definitely a national
> >advocacy organization for museum collections and organism-based systematics.
> 
> This is not the same. NSCA is, as you say, an advocacy group for 
> collections - and the annual dues are more than many University 
> collections can afford, especially when our budgets are being cut 
> (UCR, for example, would, based on its holdings, be categorized as an 
> "international collection," meaning NSCA membership, which charges by 
> the category, would cost nearly half our present operating budget). 
> It's not that they don't perform a useful service, but we as a 
> community need a lot more than what they offer. To reiterate from an 
> earlier posting of mine: "We need an umbrella support organization 
> that aggressively seeks out, obtains, and then distributes large 
> amounts of money - *TO* its members - and perhaps even takes over the 
> administration of natural history collections *directly*, so they are 
> no longer subject to the whims of people who don't even have a clue 
> about the value of a collection." To use the most recent example, if 
> the University of Arkansas has decided to eliminate its museum, we 
> presently can't stop them. If we had a powerful enough support 
> organization, however, we could potentially step in, seek out 
> sponsors and supporters from throughout Arkansas and elsewhere 
> (surely there are wealthy people from Arkansas, or U of A alumni), 
> and - if the University couldn't be persuaded to reconsider (by 
> helping them out of their budget problems with an amount of money 
> equal to their anticipated recovered costs) - then use enough money 
> to basically buy out the University's controlling interests, so they 
> *can't* close the museum. Set up an endowment, pay salaries, 
> whatever. Tough, yes, but hopefully not impossible. The problem could 
> become overwhelming if too many museums are dumped by their host 
> institutions, of course - and that may yet come to pass.
> 
> What Gerry is saying is more specific, targeting systematics research 
> as the thing which needs to be unified and supported, more than the 
> collections themselves. This, obviously, is not going to be a 
> *universal* concern of members of this mailing list, which is why I 
> rolled the collections and the people who work in and with them into 
> the same package. Systematists who do not use museum collections (a 
> subset of those who do molecular systematics, and a few specialized 
> groups) are not likely to fight on behalf of those who do, especially 
> since they're having fewer problems finding faculty positions or 
> funding presently. Besides which, collections in general have a 
> broader support base among the populace than do systematists per se, 
> and we need to capitalize (literally!) on this. I think of it as a 
> two-step process: first we need to secure the futures of our museums 
> and collections, and *then* we fill them with museum-based 
> researchers. Creating a new generation of systematists is pointless 
> if they have nowhere to work, and all the specimens are in landfills.
> 
> Either way, this is completely different from what NSCA is about.
> 
> Sincerely,
> -- 
> 
> Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
> phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>               http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
>    "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>          is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
> 
>