[NHCOLL-L:1874] Look at the big picture as well as the local scene

[Elaine Hoagland]

The retrenchment/elimination of collections resources is general pattern.
You folks need to develop an immediate yet long-range strategy.  This
strategy should include two-pronged tactics:  university and governmental
agency.  This message below is correct in asserting that "all politics are
local" and you need to identify local reasons for the existence of these
collections.  But in addition, you need to understand why there is a general
pattern now; why collections are particularly vulnerable to cuts in these
economic times and in this social context.  You need to look for alternate
sources of support for collections that are going to be neigh onto
impossible to justify to current sponsors.  It appears that paleo is
particularly vulnerable. Campuses need to demonstrate rigorous connection of
the collections to their academic missions (research, scholarship,
education, service).  This that cannot do so are in deep trouble.
 
The  current federal government accountability system, based upon an Act of
Congress passed several years ago, requires each federal agency and program
to provide benchmarks and to assess its progress towards them, in order to
justify its budget.  We are now in the "justification" phase, after several
years of ramping up (developing the benchmarks and missions of the
agencies).  NSF uses a portfolio approach to its budget justification,
citing not specific research outcomes but opportunities in research and
human resources.  Other federal agencies have more specific missions, and
hence their benchmarks are more tangible and short-term.  
 
I have recently heard from an official at USDA that this accountability
system is making it increasingly difficult to justify scientific collections
support.  Already, USGS collections have come under the ax.  Even the
Natural History Museum is having well-publicized difficulties in justifying
its research, if not its collections.
 
Those who are responsible for individual museums/collections should be
working collectively to develop the rationales to justify their work and
their collections resources.  I think in recent years there has been more
focus on "museum" and not enough on the collections themselves.  Dust off
Systematics Agenda 2000.  Seek allies in government and industry (including
medicine, agriculture, geosciences).  And work your butts off to be
productive in your scholarship and teaching, so you cannot be accused of
being "dead wood".  The wonderful projects that are coming out of NSF's
funding of large collaborative efforts are a great way to demonstrate
relevance.  (Thanks go to Quentin Wheeler and Diana Lipscomb, among others,
for helping NSF to institutionalize this funding.) 
 
Once you get to the panic stage of public letter-writing, it is usually too
late.  Find the next potential trouble spots and shore them up now.
 
Elaine
 
 
 
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: Phil Myers [mailto:pmyers at umich.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 8:15 PM
To: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:1873] another museum under siege



The systematics collections of the Michigan State University Museum are
under assault by MSU's central administration.  Plans are under
consideration that would greatly reduce numbers of both support staff and
curators.  The collection would likely remain at Michigan State but simply
be unavailable for most research purposes. 

The MSU Museum has outstanding collections of small mammals from South
America, Mexica, and Africa, as well as extensive holdings from the Great
Lakes region.  It also has a remarkable collection of large African mammals,
notably bovids.  The Museum includes a large collection of birds, with
significant numbers of specimens from South America, Asia, Mexico and
Africa; considerable holdings of reptiles and amphibians from the Great
Lakes Region, Mexico and Central America; and fishes from Ecuador and
Michigan.  Its paleontological holdings include important collections of
Late Pleistocene vertebrate megafauna from Michigan and the Great Lakes
region, Cenozic amphibians and reptiles from Michigan and the Upper Midwest,
and Permian amphibians and reptiles from Texas.


Dean Estelle McGroarty of the MSU College of Natural Science is collecting
letters and e-mails about this threatened action.   She has said that the
most helpful communications will be from people who know the collection
and/or who might be affected by changes to its accessibility, rather than
general comments about the importance of natural history collections.  She
is also interested in hearing about research that uses natural history
collections in new and innovative ways. Dean McGroarty's e-mail address is
mcgroar1 at msu.edu.






-- 
Philip  Myers
Assoc. Prof., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Assoc. Curator, Museum of Zoology
University of Michigan

tel. (734) 647-2206
FAX (734) 763-4080

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