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

Fri Oct 30 10:57:17 EDT 2015

Hi Kirsten,

I am happy to hear that NSF is pushing for more rigorous accountability for
curating university collections. When I was in graduate school a few years
ago they had just come out with that requirement but it was not yet being
enforced.

At the same time, I was developing a database specifically for geological
specimens called EGEMS, in hopes that institutions that could not afford
the larger, more complex, and much more expensive, systems would now have a
tool at their disposal. I had hopes this would spread quickly as a solution
to a growing problem.

Unfortunately due to the priorities set long ago, specimens in universities
are not typically seen as collections that need to be maintained and so
emphasis, funding, and evaluation goes to other priorities such as
research. I found this funny because without the specimens we wouldn't have
all that wonderful research!

In the summer of 2014 I wrote a proposal on this subject of priorities, it
was an open document that was collaboratively written and then signed by
over 100 members of the geological community representing museums,
universities, companies, societies, worldwide. It was presented by the
Director of the Museum of Geosciences at Virginia Tech and my previous
adviser, Dr. Robert Tracy. It had great response! GSA felt it "hit the nail
on the head" and was certainly an avenue they wanted to support and
explore.

Other endeavors such as NSF funded EarthCube and more specifically iSamples
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__earthcube.org_group_isamples&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=ozobh8Lkza3cfKiGpGv6ICRPJp_zu_5zaExhg8JA_lo&s=kxIM9eK47_DO6va4BcDP7ijSEcBnaEe2uyA7PPg4Cfo&e=  are working in support of this problem
as well and many web based groups such as the Small Collections Network
(SCNet) https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__scnet.acis.ufl.edu_content_about-2Dscnet&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=ozobh8Lkza3cfKiGpGv6ICRPJp_zu_5zaExhg8JA_lo&s=8mNh_yFXrMrFmHcgJoGMKKiH1qliYM5p16MO9VQ6l3k&e=  an initiative headed
by iDigBio.

As for EGEMS, it was being commercially sold but now that I have moved and
taken a position at a museum that is bound to another system I closed that
company and now offer it as a free, non-commercial software, to anyone who
would like it. It's a good system and a nice video that shows it's
capabilities can be found here: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DPuKI2WH2z78&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=ozobh8Lkza3cfKiGpGv6ICRPJp_zu_5zaExhg8JA_lo&s=ppj0wVg3Qv-KZoEPqPb17AYqxIioD7kvKxytjVSSecY&e= 
I'd be happy to send you, and anyone else who would like, a copy of the
EGEMS database. I just need to know if you are using a Mac or PC and I can
send the appropriate file.

As for your question regarding charging for repositorying. At Tellus
Science Museum, where I am now curator, we do not charge anything for
donations. I think that would get complicated because many of our donors
use the value of the specimens donated as a tax write off. Hopefully, if
NSF follows through, there will be funding coming from the top down in the
next years to support these curatorial endeavors, and it won't become
necessary to charge for donations.

We are however considering charging a fee for identification of large
collections and especially for gemstones, as it can be very time consuming
on our part. GIA does not want people who are GIA certified to do site ID,
they have a step by step ID process that they ask us to follow.* I'd like
to know if other institutions have gone down this route, of charging for
identification that takes longer than say 1 hr of time? *I can send a
separate email for this but thought since it was on the topic of
institutions charging for services that up until now have not been, that I
would add it in here!

Thank you,
~Sarah

On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Kirsten Nicholson <norops at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
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>
>
> *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 <989-774-3758>
>                            989-774-3829 <989-774-3829>*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
*Sarah Timm *

*Tellus Science Museum Curatorsarahtimm26 at gmail.com <sarahtimm26 at gmail.com>*
*845-774-9994*
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