[Nhcoll-l] Care & Use of Natural History Museum Collections Class--your input requested

[Dirk Neumann]

Dear Heather,

on thing both, researcher and collection managers need to know & 
understand is reasonable collecting, especially in an increasingly 
bureaucratic legislative environment that rather tends to burden 
biodiversity research instead of promoting it.

This includes that collection materials need to be treated as respectful 
as possible especially in the light of destructive sampling methods. 
Today, it is possible to sequence or conduct stable isotope analysis on 
historic specimens. While "DNA" was not even discovered at the time of 
collection of historic specimens, collections allow us today to analyse 
e.g. extinct species that persisted time in drawers or specimen jars. 
This offers opportunities, but we need to be careful not to corrode our 
collections today, anticipating (damaging or making specimens worthless 
for) future (not yet discovered) analytical advances.

In my view, researchers need to understand that their samples have a 
value beyond their (own) research interest, and thus need to be 
documented thoroughly (e.g. detailed protocols of chemicals & buffers 
used for extraction & storage) and _need to be_ transferred with 
comprehensive data into university or museum based collections after 
termination of the respective research project. It is a prerequisite of 
good research to allow verification of (own) research results. This can 
only be achieved if the materials / samples remain "available".

Here in Munich, we offer students via university based excursions to 
learn "how to collect". For students this is sometimes challenging and 
exhausting, sometimes deeply embraced and appreciated. We aim to give 
students a deep understanding what "collecting" and "fieldwork" means 
(hoping not to get stranded with an awfully mess of ill documented 
samples once these students finished their thesis). A good guidance 
might be the Manual on Field Recording Techniques and Protocols for All 
Taxa Biodiversity Inventories; chapters are freely available at the 
bottom of this page:

http://www.abctaxa.be/volumes/volume-8-manual-atbi

All the best
Dirk


Am 06.03.2014 20:29, schrieb Heather Lerner:
> I have the wonderful opportunity to be the director at the Joseph Moore
> Museum at Earlham College. With that position, I get to teach one course
> per year in "Museum Studies." My goals with the course are to first train
> students in the most useful skills they will need to go on as collections
> managers or curators or researchers who use collections, and second, for
> students who may never work in/for a museum in the future, to convince 
> them
> of the importance of biological collections so that they will be educated
> lifelong museum advocates.
>
> Here is where I ask for *your input:*
> (1) what are the *skills *you want incoming collections manager, graduate
> students or curators to have?
>
> (2) we will read an article each week in which someone has published their
> research using specimens/collections as a primary source of
> information/data. For example, ancient DNA, isotope, morphological 
> studies.
> What are some of the best *examples of collections-based research* you
> thinkI should include?
>
> Thanks for your input,
>
> Heather
>
> -- 
>
> Heather
>
> *******************************************
> Heather R. L. Lerner, Ph.D., M.S.
> Joseph Moore Museum <http://earlham.edu/jmm> Director
> Assistant Professor of Biology
> Earlham College
> 801 National Road West
> Richmond IN 47374
>
> *******************************************
> Google Voice: 949-GENOMES
> Email: hlerner at gmail.com <mailto:hlerner at gmail.com>
> http://heatherlerner.com/
> *******************************************
>
>
>
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-- 
Dirk Neumann

Tel: 089 / 8107-111
Fax: 089 / 8107-300
email: Dirk.Neumann(a)zsm.mwn.de

Postanschrift:

Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns
Zoologische Staatssammlung München
Dirk Neumann, Sektion Ichthyologie / DNA-Labor
Münchhausenstr. 21
81247 München

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---------

Dirk Neumann

Tel: +49-89-8107-111
Fax: +49-89-8107-300
email: Dirk.Neumann(a)zsm.mwn.de

postal address:

Bavarian Natural History Collections
The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
Dirk Neumann, Section Ichthyology / DNA-Lab
Muenchhausenstr. 21
81247 Munich (Germany)

Visit our section at:
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