[NHCOLL-L:2559] Short-nosed Sturgeon Discussion

[Shirley S Albright]

Many, many thanks to this global natural history community who responded 
to my inquiry about insurance value for a short-nosed sturgeon!   I'm 
glad I livened up your coffee hours, disturbed your normally restful 
night's sleep, and increased your correspondence files.

Your responses have stimulated a discussion - a long time coming! - that 
continues as the risk management group for the State of New Jersey 
wishes to make individual agencies responsible for a USD $10,000 
deductible on losses and paying for our own insurance riders.    This is 
impacting our entire institution's research and loan program.   If 
anyone is interested, I'll post our progress from time to time.

This sturgeon issue as well as the the whole insurance rider fiasco for 
the State are spurring us to really take a long, hard look at insurance 
values as well as collection access policies, incoming and outgoing loan 
policies and procedures, and the very real dilemmas surrounding the 
economics of natural history objects.   This institution also has 
collections of fine art, history, and archaeology so most of us are very 
envious of our fine art and decorative arts colleagues whose insurance 
values seem ever so much easier to determine.    What's more, there 
appears to be more IRS "accredited" appraisers in those fields than in 
natural history - although minerals, meteorites and modern shell 
valuations are somewhat easier to come by.

Film at eleven!

Shirley Albright
New Jersey State Museum