[Nhcoll-l] FW: Museum collections

[Pedro A. Viegas]

Indeed Peter, hitting the nail in the head

   An attempt of a politically correct retort from the VP which actually
shows nothing but that what came out from desperate/upset Museum staff was
the actual truth.


   a) " the Museum’s research collection will be better preserved at
another institution that has the resources needed to house and care for it
adequately."  - then why would the institution be planning on its
expansion?
A University Museum expansion that does not account for research
collections.
A University Museum... puzzling.

  b) "pare the collection down to something that would meet their teaching
needs and that would fit into a classroom-sized space."  - once again, even
though the Museum* will be expanded, not closed down*, the collections have
to fit a *classroom-sized space. *

They must be planning to have chinese animatronic-dinosaurs only in all the
new halls this expansion will bring. No space for collections!


  c) " Failing that, disposal of the collection seems to be the only
alternative."
Once more, the news of the collection being in imminent danger ARE true,
since they have made the decision that collections will be disposed of if
no one takes them.

and the cherry on top
  d) "The 48-hr period (...) was the amount of time requested to locate
other space on our campus..."
Does the VP actually work at a University?? Does the VP know how a
University actually operates??
If any of these questions would be answered with Yes, then this comment
would have never even be thought of as a reality from higher management.

How many of us is capable in *2 working days(!!!!)* to go to other
departments and convince colleagues that they should sacrifice their own
work space for another department´s items.  AH! (= LOL)
This is beyond ridiculous!!

There is NO space, everyone is strugling!  Somethimes even to keep old-ish
machines in case they are needed in for future use/research, and therefore
more often than not new equipment is thrown away due to space constraints.
 I have seen two year old fume cupboards (which costed many many thousands
of $$$) to be thrown out for the new researcher´s equipment, whole lab
equipments and supplies being chucked in a skip due to space constraints.

The VP did not help himself with his statement, unless (wink, wink) he is
actually as upsted as the staff are and this was a politically planned-out
retort, a camouflaged complaint if you will, against the stakeholders
decision and views of $$$$ for sports = good and $$$$ for science = bad.
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