[NHCOLL-L:3720] Re: NSCA - NSF Collections Survey Participation

[Alan Prather]

Friends:

To my knowledge, no one has followed up on Dan's request to set the record
straight on the NSF Scientific Collections Survey. Hopefully, I can do so.
For those of you that do not know me, I am one of the people who is working
on the RCN for Building a Community of Natural History Collections (aka
CollectionsWeb, www.collectionsweb.org) and this survey is an issue that we
are very invested in. The major points are:

1) Only collections that have received NSF funding for collections can
participate in the survey. NSF had explored the possibility of broadening
the survey, but they are constrained by the Office of Management and
Budget's very strict rules, so at this time they can only survey collections
that they have funded. If you think you should have gotten the survey but
have not yet received it you can send an email to collsurv at nsf.gov and
explain why you should be included (i.e. explain when you got NSF funds for
collections, and what the funds were for). 

2) Everyone, including the NSF program officers, realize the limitations of
this survey and some of us are working hard with NSF to find a way to
complete a similar, but much more inclusive, survey of U.S. collections. I
believe this will happen. If it does happen, let's "get our act together" as
Dan says and make it as successful as possible. 

3) If you do get the chance to fill out the NSF Scientific Collections
Survey by all means participate! Even though this survey is limited in its
breadth, it is still a very important means of getting a picture of the
status of collections and NSF and other participating federal agencies will
certainly take the results seriously. 

The folks at CollectionsWeb will be working with NSCA and NSF to try to get
the best understanding of the state of collections possible. Please feel
free to contact me off-list if you have any questions or comments.
alan at msu.edu

Alan Prather
Director of the MSU Herbarium
Michigan State University

> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 1:25 PM
> To: dbrooks at hmns.org; nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu; AVECOL-
> L at LISTSERV.LSU.EDU
> Subject: [NHCOLL-L:3719] Re: NSCA - NSF Collections Survey
> Participation
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> Incoming email for the past week clearly indicates this survey is
> generating a good deal of curiosity
> and confusion.  I've received several messages - and forwarded messages
> - strongly encouraging
> me to participate in filling out the survey, not filling out the
> survey, not being eligible to fill out the
> survey, or awaiting some other survey that will be forthcoming.
> 
> Can anyone truly set this all straight and let all of us know?
> 
> As director of an entomological research collection, I am very
> interested in participating as appropriate,
> and I'm happy to see all the attention being focused on our collections
> and collection resources.  But
> we also seem (as is common) to not have our act together!
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Dan Young