[Nhcoll-l] Do your museums charge to accept specimens?

[Kirsten Nicholson]

My museum is looking to change its policies in light of changes coming down
the pipe from NSF. As I understand things, currently NSF funded projects
require a "data management plan" which is variously implemented by
investigators, but part of which is a requirement to deposit their
specimens and data somewhere that can be publicly accessed. Coming down the
pipe (I hear in the next year) are more rigorous requirements for the
deposition of the specimens (must be a curated collection) and they will
allow/require (not clear on this part) lines of funding to be included that
will offset the costs of curating all of these new collections.

Right now, like most places, we charge nothing for acquisitions, but we're
also pretty much out of space, there are those in the university who do not
see our value and thus our budget has plummeted, and yet we're trying to
push forward to acquire more space and or a new building. Our director got
excited about these new changes coming down the pipe so that we can charge
to help us offset the costs of curating, but he's wanting to push this
point NOW with researchers here on campus. I fear that doing so will just
encourage them to deposit their specimens in other museums and not ours
because it'll cost them nothing to do so.

So I'm wondering if anybody out there is already charging and if so, how
much, and how many museums are doing this or preparing to do this?

Thanks for any thoughts you have,

Kirsten

-- 
Kirsten E. Nicholson, Ph.D






*Assoc. Prof. Biology          and       Curator of Natural HistoryDept. of
Biology                             Museum of Cultural and Natural
History217 Brooks Hall                            103 Rowe HallCentral
Michigan Univ.                 Central Michigan University Mt. Pleasant, MI
48859                 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859989-774-3758
             989-774-3829*
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