[Nhcoll-l] "erosion of collections-based science" article
Barry OConnor
bmoc at umich.edu
Wed Nov 26 14:02:31 EST 2014
Wow - genetics was just a fad. Who would have thought??
Now, back to putting specimens in drawers. - Barry
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 10:54 AM, malcolm McCallum <
malcolm.mccallum at herpconbio.org> wrote:
> THis is what happens when the focus of non-profit institutions moves from
> concern with their mission (research-education-etc.) and income.
> Benevolence and the greater good no longer play a role in most
> organizations. Further, the absurbd chasing of fads at the cost of
> foundations
> is further eroding the fabric of science, just as predicted in the short
> story "The Mark Gable Foundation" in Leo Szilard's collection of short
> stories entitled "The Voice of Dolphins. (
> http://books.google.com/books?id=xm2mAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false).
> Scientists are increasingly chasing fads, and ignoring the unknown in other
> areas. Why, just a few months ago they discovered a tendon that is 80% of
> folk's knees. IT is damaged in most people who are involved in sports, and
> they did not even know it existed. How could this happen? Well, who does
> gross anatomy research anymore? Everyone jumped on the genetics bandwagon
> in the 70s through the 80s and no attention was made to preserving the rest
> of biology. Now, we have jumped on the computational bandwagon. Every few
> years to every decade, there is a new drum beat for a new fad, and everyone
> is trained for it. In the case of biology, rather than trying to fill in
> the natural history blanks to fill these computational problems, they just
> make assumptions based on what we know about other organisms. All of this
> leads to less use of specimens. Further, most museum posts get filled by
> systematists, if they are filled by a PHD at all. Systematists are largely
> doing molecular work today and outside of vouchers do not examine the
> morphological variation, so they do not use the specimens like they once
> did. The people who actually use the specimens the most are the small cadre
> of scientists who have been trained in natural history studies. These
> kinds of people still address questions in evoltuion, systematics,
> behavior, and even conservation and epidemiology using specimens as samples
> of biological data that was subject to the environmental conditions present
> at the time. Anything from growth rates, to reproductive output, diets, to
> growth patterns can be inferred from specimens. These kinds of scientists
> are not being trained, they are not being hired in museums (private,
> public, or university) as far as I can tell. The problem with just making
> an assumption as most scientists are doing right now, is that whether you
> are using niche modeling, monte carlo methods, or species risk assessment,
> the more assumptions you insert into the models, the more you magnify
> uncertainty and reduce the dependability of the predictions. In other
> words, its sheer laziness. In any case, the move away from studying
> organisms and the move to chase fads and bandwagons (whether legitimately
> needing growth or not) has eroded the scientific process, and no one even
> seems to care or pay attention. The loss of museum scientists and research
> programs are only a small symptom of this growing problem.
>
> Here is an exerpt..
>
> "Would you intend to do anything for the advancement of science?" I
> asked.
> "No, Mark Gable said. "I believe scientific progress is too fast as it
> is."
> "I share your feeling about this point." I said with the fervor of
> conviction, "but then why not do somthing about the retardation of the
> scientific progress?"
> "That I would very much like to do," Mark Gable said, "But how do I go
> about it?"
> "Well," I said, "I think that shouldn't be very difficult. As a matter
> of fact, I think it would be quite easy. You could set up a foundation,
> with an annual endowment of thirty million dollars. Research workers in
> need of funds could apply for grants, if they coudl make out a convincing
> case. Have ten committees, each composed of twelve scientists, appointed
> to pass on these applications. Take the most active scientists out of the
> laboratory and make them members of these committees. And the very best men
> in the field should be appinted as chairmen at salaries of fifty thousand
> dollars each. Also, have about twenty prizes of one hundred thosand
> dollars each for the best scientific papers of the year. This is just
> about all you would have to do. Your lawyers could easily prepare a charter
> for the foundation. As a matter of fact, any of the National Science
> Foundation bills which were introduced in the Seventy-ninth and Eightieth
> Congresses could perfectly well serve as a model.:
> "I thin you had better explain to Mr. Gable why this foundation would
> in fact retard the progress of science," said a bespectacled young man
> sitting at the far end of the table, whose name I didn't get at the time of
> introduction.
> "It should be obvious," I said. "First of all, the best scientists
> would be removed from their laboratories and kept busy on committees
> passing on applications for funds. Secondly, the scientific workers in need
> of funds would concentrate on problems which were considered promising and
> were pretty certain to leasdd to publishable results. For a few years there
> might be a great increase in scientific output; but by goin gafte thte
> obvious, pretty soon scinece would dry out. Scinece would become something
> like a parlor game. Some things would be considered interesting, others
> not. There would be fashions. Those who followed the fashion would get
> grants. Those who wouldnt would not, an dpretty soon they woul dlearn to
> foll the fashion, too."
>
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 6:30 AM, Jessica Smith <
> jesmith at randolphcollege.edu> wrote:
>
>> Jeanette et al,
>>
>> That is really a shame, because at Randolph College we have found that
>> working with our collections has been an invaluable resource and resume
>> builder for our undergraduate students. In 2011, they were almost entirely
>> neglected and in storage in the attic, with only a couple of professors in
>> the Biology and Environmental Science departments who used select specimens
>> in teaching. At that time I was an older undergraduate student, and began
>> working with those professors to bring them out of storage and to utilize
>> student interns for the purpose of cataloging and digitizing our
>> collections, which include birds, mammals, shells, invertebrates, reptiles
>> and amphibians, a sizable herbarium, fossils, and insects. In only three
>> years, the student involvement has gone from 3 to 30, and continues to
>> grow. We currently have student interns involved in projects ranging from
>> specimen preparation, digital photography, cataloging and conservation, and
>> promotion of collections. We also incorporated collections-based research,
>> recently helping an archaeologist to identify bird, mammal, and human
>> remains from a cemetery site in Tunisia using the osteological reference
>> material in our collection, estimating a Minimum Number of Individuals, and
>> sequencing DNA from some of the human remains. The students involved in the
>> project aren't just biology or museum studies majors; we have had interns
>> who have majored in art, history, economics, sociology, environmental
>> studies, and creative writing. Several current interns are considering
>> careers in forensics, and have been doing the dental attrition of human
>> remains. Our recent graduates have embarked on awesome careers, including
>> jobs in education, field ornithology, wildlife conservation, and
>> environmental research at facilities such as Oak Ridge National
>> Laboratories, as well as graduate programs such as veterinary medicine and
>> ecology. We have even been working on a collaborative project with a
>> regional middle school group; the middle schoolers are using our
>> collections as a resource for material to recreate through 3-D printing,
>> giving them highly marketable skills in complex computer drafting and
>> design.
>>
>> As a small college, we are limited with funding but are fortunate that
>> Randolph College and the Lynchburg community recognize the great value of
>> this project, to our students and to the future they represent. At a recent
>> faculty meeting one of our deans joked that the Collections Project
>> attracts more students than any of our sports teams, and it's practically
>> true! And with good reason--students know that the experiences they get
>> from working with museum collections constitutes real, tangible, active
>> research, which gives them a competitive edge when applying to jobs or
>> graduate programs which seek candidates who are actively engaged in
>> intellectual inquiry and give careful attention to detail.
>>
>> If anyone wants to know more about the details of our program, let me
>> know (on or off list) and I will be happy to answer any questions. We are
>> eager to do everything we can to offset the disturbing trend toward neglect
>> of collections-based science!
>>
>> Emily Smith, Collections Manager
>> Randolph College Natural History Collections Project
>> esmith at randolphcollege.edu
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Oct 29, 2014, at 2:21 PM, Jeanette Girosky <jeanettegirosky at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> How utterly depressing.
>>
>> I am an older adult undergrad student and I volunteer for a small natural
>> history collection. My experience has been that there is a huge disconnect
>> between my university and our collection. If the biology department of my
>> school is not aware of/encourages the use of our collection, how will the
>> importance of collections be maintained?
>>
>> I have not had ONE professor even mention our collection as a resource
>> for students on their own. It took a few years but I FINALLY got my
>> herpetology class to at least come visit our collection. We don't learn any
>> curatorial skills in our labs. I wish there was a 'museum 101' class...or
>> something to that effect.
>>
>> It's also hard, I imagine, to have advocacy when you have budget
>> shortfalls and an already overwhelmed staff. And if the interest of my
>> fellow students is any indication of the future of natural history
>> collections, well, we are doomed.
>>
>> I wish I had some answers. As a volunteer I do everything I can to engage
>> the public and try and come up with interesting displays for public events.
>> I am really hoping others will contribute their ideas to this thread as to
>> what they do to advocate their collections/research.
>>
>>
>> thanks,
>> Jeanette Girosky
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, October 29, 2014 1:41 PM, "Bentley, Andrew Charles" <
>> abentley at ku.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Randy
>>
>> I think that shift has already happened. I spend an inordinate amount
>> of my time advocating for my collection, KU collections and collections in
>> general and it has become an integral part of what I do. I think we all
>> need to advocates - not only for our own collections and collections in
>> general but for our profession. The profession has changed profoundly over
>> the last 10-15 years but all too often we are still seen as glorified
>> bottle "shufflers". Part of this is due to the fact that we have not done
>> a good enough job advocating for our profession as a group. Just like
>> collections and their data can no longer be seen as silos that can be
>> managed as you see fit, our profession is the same. We need to advocate
>> not only for our position within our institution but for the profession as
>> a whole on a wider scale. SPNHC, together with NSCA and AIBS (and more
>> recently iDigBio) are a great facilitator and conduit for that kind of
>> advocacy and I can see change happening.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> A : A : A :
>> }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>
>> V V V
>> Andy Bentley
>> Ichthyology Collection Manager/Specify Usability Lead
>> University of Kansas
>> Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Research Center
>> Dyche Hall
>> 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
>> Lawrence, KS, 66045-7593
>> USA
>>
>> Tel: (785) 864-3863
>> Fax: (785) 864-5335
>> Email: ABentley at ku.edu
>>
>> A : A : A :
>> }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>
>> V V V
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Singer, Randal [randal.a.singer at ua.edu]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 29, 2014 12:24 PM
>> *To:* Bentley, Andrew Charles; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
>> *Subject:* RE: "erosion of collections-based science" article
>>
>> I think as CMs, our focus will shift from research and facilitating
>> research to being more of outreach conduits. Which isn't necessarily
>> bad....but the times they are a changin'.
>>
>> <image001.jpg>
>>
>> *From:* nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [
>> mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
>> <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Bentley, Andrew
>> Charles
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 29, 2014 12:18 PM
>> *To:* nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
>> *Subject:* [Nhcoll-l] FW: "erosion of collections-based science" article
>>
>> Thought this might be of interest to NHCOLLers. Once again, there are
>> some interesting threads that come from NatSCA that may be of interest.
>> Please consider signing up for this list. I will continue to forward items
>> of interest though...
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> A : A : A :
>> }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>
>> V V V
>> Andy Bentley
>> Ichthyology Collection Manager/Specify Usability Lead
>> University of Kansas
>> Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Research Center
>> Dyche Hall
>> 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
>> Lawrence, KS, 66045-7593
>> USA
>>
>> Tel: (785) 864-3863
>> Fax: (785) 864-5335
>> Email: ABentley at ku.edu
>>
>> A : A : A :
>> }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>
>> V V V
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* The Natural Science Collections Association discussion list [
>> NATSCA at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] on behalf of Henry Mcghie [
>> henry.mcghie at MANCHESTER.AC.UK]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 29, 2014 11:04 AM
>> *To:* NATSCA at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>> *Subject:* FW: "erosion of collections-based science" article
>> Hello- this is maybe of interest, especially to those of you involved
>> in advocacy.
>> Best wishes,
>> Henry
>>
>> *From:* Bulletin Board for Bird Collections and Curators [
>> mailto:AVECOL-L at LISTSERV.LSU.EDU <AVECOL-L at LISTSERV.LSU.EDU>] *On Behalf
>> Of *Capparella, Angelo
>> *Sent:* 29 October 2014 16:03
>> *To:* AVECOL-L at LISTSERV.LSU.EDU
>> *Subject:* [AVECOL-L] "erosion of collections-based science" article
>>
>> Our recently retired, not likely to be replaced, herbarium curator at
>> Illinois State University sent me this interesting article below (minus
>> images and hyperlinks to prevent post rejection). As others have retired
>> from ISU, I have absorbed as Curator first the Birds, then the Mammals,
>> then the Herps, and finally the Fish. Upon the recent retirement of the
>> Insect Curator, I volunteered to oversee the Insects until a decision is
>> made as to what to do with them. Of course, being Curator is an add-on duty
>> here. Fortunately, our retired herbarium director is going to continue as
>> an active emeritus for awhile. Another interesting incident this semester
>> occurred when a M.S. student from the University of Illinois came to use
>> our bird collection for his spectrograph project because the collection at
>> his institution is “currently inaccessible”. Where will it end?
>>
>> Angelo Capparella
>>
>> *The Erosion of Collections-Based Science: Alarming Trend or Coincidence?*
>> From *Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4*, October 2014.
>> *A Curator’s Perspective*
>> *By Vicki A. Funk**
>> Over the last few years many visitors have passed through the doors of
>> the *U.S. National Herbarium** (Herbarium Code: US)* bringing depressing
>> news about some of our fellow botanical institutions and research centers.
>> Institutions, which house historic and otherwise important botanical
>> specimens, have been closed. The scientists who study, preserve, and curate
>> them, have been fired, downsized, forced into retirement, or had their
>> focus directed away from taxonomy and systematics. When reasons are given
>> they usually involve budget shortfalls; unfortunately, collections and
>> research are easy targets. But when I mentioned this to one former museum
>> director who was visiting, his reply was, “When I was a director and had a
>> budget shortfall I went out and raised more money, I did not fire my staff!”
>> Is this a trend or a coincidence? Perhaps a more detailed examination of
>> events will provide an answer and so we begin with the Milwaukee Public
>> Museum and continue up to the ongoing recent troubles at the Royal Botanic
>> Gardens, Kew.
>> In 2005 *Milwaukee Public Museum** (MIL; established in 1882; 250,000
>> specimens)* eliminated science and fired most of its staff. If you check
>> the museum’s website it seems they no longer have much of a science
>> presence, just a few collections managers, emeritus curators and adjunct
>> curators who have jobs elsewhere. At the time, most of us thought this was
>> a unique event. How could an institution with 4.5 million objects and
>> specimens, spread over a broad array of departments go out of the research
>> business? How did they think they would keep their collections, exhibits
>> and education programs up to date? But in the nearly 10 years since that
>> event, additional examples of this type of nearsighted administrative
>> behavior has become more frequent as research program after research
>> program has taken the brunt of budget shortfalls; we have become
>> increasingly more alarmed.
>> *Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden* *(FTG; established in 1936; 165,000
>> specimens).*
>> Fairchild has long been active in systematic research. The board and
>> administration decided to move to a different model where they would no
>> longer pay the salaries of research staff but rather have Florida
>> International University faculty work out of Fairchild. They currently have
>> only one research scientist working there. Over a period from 2007 to 2009,
>> the emphasis for research seems to have shifted from tropical systematics
>> to ecology and conservation. In fact, you cannot even find the herbarium on
>> the Fairchild website. If you search for it on Google all you can find is
>> the *FTG Virtual Herbarium* which contains only about half the
>> collections.
>> *New York State Museum, Albany* *(NYS; established in 1836; 279,000
>> specimens).*
>> Most of the research staff was let go a few years ago, including all of
>> the botanists. According to the staff directory, there are four curators,
>> all zoologists, one of which appears to be a state employee. They do have
>> collection managers listed for most collections, including botany, but the
>> herbarium does not appear to have an active research program.
>> *Brooklyn Botanical Garden* *(BKL; established in 1910; 300,000
>> specimens).*
>> In August 2013, Brooklyn Botanic Garden suspended its research program
>> and shuttered its herbarium. All members of the Garden’s Science Department
>> were laid off, except for one herbarium assistant who was transferred
>> elsewhere and a part-time plant mounter. The Science Department’s director
>> was on sabbatical at NSF and she has since left the Garden for a position
>> elsewhere. The Director of Living Collections was made the Director of
>> Collections with the additional responsibility of managing the herbarium.
>> The staff laid off had 60 years of combined experience with BKL. Currently
>> no scientific research is being conducted at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The
>> herbarium, once widely used by scientists especially those doing research
>> in New York City and Long Island, remains essentially inaccessible to the
>> public.
>> *Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad** (INBio) (INB; established in
>> 1989; 183,000 specimens).*
>> In 2011 INBIO announced that it was going out of the collections and
>> research business. The herbarium was rapidly moved into another building
>> because the building built specifically for the herbarium, had been sold.
>> Recently, the entire staff was let go. This important collection is
>> completely databased and available on line and together with the herbarium
>> at the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica
>> <http://www.museocostarica.go.cr/herbario/> (CR; 215,000 specimens) they
>> make Costa Rica the best botanically documented country between Mexico City
>> and Bogota. Fortunately, the Museo has agreed to take charge of the
>> herbarium; although, currently, they do not have the space to incorporate
>> the specimens. So far, there is no guarantee that there will be jobs for
>> the staff. Hopefully, there will be a new building constructed so that both
>> collections can be combined and additional trained staff will be hired to
>> manage it.
>> *Field Museum of Natural History** (F; established in 1893; 2,700,000
>> specimens).*
>> Staffing for research and collections at the Field Museum had been on the
>> decline for years. Beginning in 2009, between buyouts and staff leaving for
>> other jobs, science staffing took a steep turn downward. Currently, there
>> are only two curators in Botany and three support staff to study and manage
>> the enormous resource. Fortunately there are three emeriti that continue to
>> work. There are no science departments, just one “Action Science Center.”
>> The collections are well maintained because of the dedication of
>> collections staff but there is no real growth. However, the emphasis seems
>> to be on marketable skills and plant taxonomy does not seem to be on the
>> list. There is no announced plan to hire additional staff.
>> *California Academy of Sciences** (CAS; established in 1853; 2,000,000
>> specimens).*
>> Recently the administration of CAS has decided to shift the focus of the
>> museum. Established scientists were pressured into retiring, new people
>> will be hired but they will have a significant focus on outreach using
>> social media. Oddly this comes after the construction of a new building to
>> house the collections.
>> *Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew** (K; established in 1759; became a
>> government institution in 1841; 7,000,000 specimens with well over 350,000
>> types).*
>> For months rumors have been in circulation about the drastic changes that
>> are taking place at Kew. Finally enough people have visited and others have
>> passed through US, that we are getting a better picture of what is
>> happening. Kew, long a premier botanical institution for research and
>> collections, is under serious attack. Reports indicate that the Herbarium,
>> Jodrell Laboratory, and Millennium Seed Bank are to undergo drastic
>> administrative changes and a significant reduction in science staff. The
>> major structural change is that these three administrative units will be
>> replaced by six focal areas: Collections, Identification and Naming,
>> Comparative Plant and Fungal Biology, Conservation, Natural Capital, and
>> Biodiversity Informatics. Nine people have been appointed to guaranteed new
>> positions. Everyone else is being forced to apply for open new positions
>> that are made available.
>> When this crisis at Kew started 25 people decided to retire and those
>> positions were lost altogether. That left 200 staff members in the three
>> units. The scientific staff is scheduled to be reduced from 200 to 176
>> which makes it seem as if only 24 positions will be lost. However this
>> number is misleading—the 176 positions include 12 new positions in
>> Biodiversity Informatics, at least some of which may need to be hired from
>> outside Kew, which would further reduce the number of current Kew staff to
>> be retained. Also, the new positions include 27 ‘Career Development
>> Fellows,’ which are fixed non-renewable term (3-5 years) appointments
>> designed to develop researchers from current Kew staff. These staff members
>> are then apparently expected to seek research positions at Kew, attract
>> independent funding, or simply become redundant and have to leave Kew.
>> Except for the heads of the new focal areas and a limited number of new
>> slots that are very close to existing ones, everyone else will have to
>> apply for one or more of the positions that have been created in the new
>> structure. Any new positions that are not filled by current Kew staff will
>> be opened to a wider pool of applicants. It appears then that at a minimum,
>> 24 current Kew staff members in science will lose their jobs by December 1
>> but reason suggests that the number could be significantly higher. Taking
>> all of this into account, the total loss of permanent jobs in science at
>> Kew will probably be at least 50 or 25 percent of the current permanent
>> science positions. However, if you include the 25 that took retirement the
>> loss of science positions would be 34 percent.
>> Equally disturbing is the division of the remaining herbarium staff into
>> three areas: Americas, Africa, and Asia. Systematic groups such as the
>> “Legumes” will no longer exist and the leaders and staff of these groups
>> will have to compete for jobs with everyone else. What is striking about
>> this is that most of the world (including Kew scientists) has been moving
>> to synthetic work with a global focus and yet the administration at Kew is
>> choosing to balkanize their research into areas. It is amazing that *Muséum
>> National d'Histoire Naturelle* in Paris (P) has just worked hard to
>> break down such barriers while Kew is building them. It makes it difficult
>> for specialists in a particular family to view a plant group from a global
>> perspective. Will we no longer have “world experts” at Kew?
>> In addition, the loss of support staff at Kew will be great and that will
>> mean that curators will have to spend more time doing technical work and
>> less time on science. Those scientists that are able to obtain one of the
>> herbarium positions may very well find themselves overwhelmed with
>> collections work as well as mentoring and teaching and as a result have
>> very little time to do research. Certainly Kew has a budget shortfall but
>> when you balance the budget by gutting research and collections staff you
>> fail to recognize that expertise in a group of plants is built up over many
>> years and cannot be replicated once it is lost.
>> Biological specimens are critical for the next frontiers of climate
>> change studies: they provide the evidence of past as well as present
>> distributions. A deeper understanding of life on Earth in the past can help
>> us predict and possibly mitigate the worst impacts of climate change in the
>> future. Such information is not readily available but it is becoming more
>> so. For some collections it is now possible to view their data and images
>> online and this allows us to use advanced modeling techniques to predict
>> which species may survive and which may go extinct.
>> Images alone are not enough. Names of organisms change frequently and
>> these proposed changes need to be evaluated and either accepted or
>> rejected. More importantly, a specimen is only useful if it has a proper
>> identification. Many specimens are misidentified. Insuring that something
>> is correctly identified requires a detailed examination of the actual
>> specimen, usually under a microscope. As a result, all collections require
>> constant curation to make them useful for climate change studies and other
>> biodiversity studies. Collections that are not studied and maintained, even
>> if they are physically well cared for, can become out-of-date and less
>> useful.
>> The utility of collections does not stop with climate change. If you
>> search for “Biological Collections” in *Google Scholar*, you will find a
>> host of references on the use of such specimens ranging from phenological
>> data to populations trends, utility of vouchers, DNA based phylogenies,
>> biodiversity estimates, and trait evolution.
>> Lastly, the actions of these gardens and museums fail to take into
>> account that to be relevant and useful collections must continue to grow as
>> new discoveries are made. Expeditions to poorly understood areas are
>> critical for filling in holes in our data and for collecting new material
>> in ways that allow the preservation of genome quality tissue for new
>> methods of investigation. It seems that just when the world is beating a
>> path to our door and asking for help and collaboration we are closing our
>> doors and turning them away.
>> Here at the Smithsonian Institution we are not immune. Since I was hired
>> in 1981, our *scientific staff* has shrunk by about 50 percent and our
>> collections staff even more. The Botany staff at the Smithsonian is
>> concerned about our colleagues and the collections they study, at Kew and
>> around the world. It is troubling that there seems to be an alarming trend
>> in museum and garden administrations to devalue collections and the staff
>> who study and care for them. This is a critical point in time to work
>> toward a world-wide effort to stop and reverse this attrition.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
>> http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
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>> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
>> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
>> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
>>
>>
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>> _______________________________________________
>> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
>> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
>> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
>> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
>> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> _______________________________________________
>> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
>> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
>> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
>> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
>> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Malcolm L. McCallum
> Department of Environmental Studies
> University of Illinois at Springfield
>
> Managing Editor,
> Herpetological Conservation and Biology
>
>
>
> "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" -
> Allan Nation
>
> 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert
> 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss,
> and pollution.
> 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction
> MAY help restore populations.
> 2022: Soylent Green is People!
>
> The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi)
> Wealth w/o work
> Pleasure w/o conscience
> Knowledge w/o character
> Commerce w/o morality
> Science w/o humanity
> Worship w/o sacrifice
> Politics w/o principle
>
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>
--
-So many mites, so little time!
Barry M. OConnor
Professor & Curator
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Interim Director, Museum of Zoology
University of Michigan phone: 734-763-4354
1109 Geddes Ave. fax: 734-763-4080
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079 e-mail: bmoc at umich.edu
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