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

[Alexandra Snyder]

Dear Kirsten,

The Division of Fishes, Museum of Southwestern Biology has been the main
repository of southwestern desert fishes for both state and federal
agencies. These collections come from long-term monitoring projects,
habitat restoration studies, life history studies, and various aquatic
systems studies. Over the years, we have received funding for curation and
data management of both contemporary and historical collections in MSB
fishes.

To that end, it has been my responsibility to make sure that in return,
beyond curation and data management, agency biologists receive
"products"---they get something back for their funding.   These "products"
include such things as access to an organized digital library of field
notes (ca. 80,000 pages) and "clean"-*Photoshopped*- pdfs of field notes,
an electronic catalog and georeferenced specimen localities for mapping,
inter-agency communication via a good accession protocol (electronic and
hard files), research and field support in the form of finding and
providing supplies (requisitioning supplies can be harder for state and
federal agencies), lab work space, lab and field assistance (well paid
student employees), relevant background data prior to field excursions,
genetic archives and resources, etc. There is a lot of appreciation for
these services and products over time; asking for support gets easier.

Over the past 25 years, the  MSB Division of Fishes has received most of
its funding from US Fish and Wildlife-area office, New Mexico Dept. Game
and Fishes, and the US Bureau of Reclamation. Our operating budget from the
University has been too small for the types of things we want to accomplish
with these collections.  For major upgrades, we have received NSF
biological collections support and pre-disaster mitigation funding from
FEMA for shelving upgrade but the ongoing agency support (I call it my
"bread and butter" funding) has been invaluable.

So, instead of "charging" for specimen accessions, see if your *main*
contributors will "fund" your activities as a museum. The trick is to "give
back" in the form of museum support for their research: logistical, space,
access.

Best, Lex Snyder

On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 6:55 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
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> 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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-- 
*****************************************************
Alexandra M Snyder
Collections Manager-Fishes
Museum of Southwestern Biology
MSC01-2020

Physical address for FedEx and UPS
Bldg.83  Room 204, 302 Yale Blvd NE
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque NM 87131 USA
PH.505.277.6005

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