[Nhcoll-l] Collections and Covid-19
Debra Trock
dtrock at calacademy.org
Fri Mar 13 21:51:45 EDT 2020
Trina’s advice is excellent. At CalAcademy we were able to put together
some digital work but it would have been better to have had it planned
rather than scrambling to throw some things together. The only other thing
I would add is to understand the capacity of your VPN. Ours is already a
little slow, and because of so much increase in use we were told business
critical functions only. No databases and no ability to work on large
datasets. I think that some of our curators do run their own servers, but
some of our potential digital work by collections staff may be limited.
Stay safe everyone
Deb
On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 6:41 PM Trina Roberts <troberts at nhm.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Like many of the rest of your collections, NHMLA and La Brea Tar Pits are
> now closed to visitors--we have canceled research visits and tours through
> April 10, and will assess the possibility of re-opening as the situation
> changes. The museums are also closed to the public as of this afternoon.
> We currently hope to keep collections operations going, just without
> outside access, but of course that depends on staff availability and
> institutional decisions about who should be at work.
>
> Much harder, it turns out, has been how to accommodate collections staff
> as the institution moves somewhat rapidly to a much heavier reliance on
> telecommuting. I can't say we were very well prepared for this. Three
> suggestions for those of you who have not yet reached this point, should
> you choose to learn from my mistakes:
>
> 1) Decide whether you're prepared to let staff take collection items home
> to work on, and under what conditions and with what limitations. Write
> that policy and get it approved now. Talk to your insurer if your
> collection is insured, because they and your underwriters may need to be in
> on this conversation.
> 2) Start scanning. I bet you're all sitting on as many piles of documents
> and data that you've been wanting to transcribe/digitize some day as we
> are. If you have staff who are forced to self-quarantine or work from
> home, you may want digital projects ready to go.
> 3) If you need additional IT support, VPNs, software licenses, training,
> etc for collection staff to access databases or files from home, and for
> all of them to want to do this *simultaneously*, start getting that into
> place.
>
> Good luck and stay healthy, everyone!
>
> --Trina
>
>
> --
> Trina E. Roberts, Ph.D.
> Associate VP, Collections
> Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County
> 213-763-3330
> troberts at nhm.org
> she, her, hers
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 6:29 AM Richard Rabeler <rabeler at umich.edu> wrote:
>
>> Colleagues:
>>
>> We are actively discussing plans for our research museum collections at
>> the University of Michigan Research Museums Center over the next month or
>> so, especially as it relates to students, volunteers, and visitors.
>>
>> While I have seen comments on AAMG-L about how people associated with
>> public galleries are being impacted, I don't recall seeing the same from
>> the collections community. I suspect some of you, esp. in university
>> collections, have been faced with class cancellations and restrictions on
>> travel and possibly visitors and you are likely having similar
>> conversations.
>>
>> Out of curiosity, how are you planning to handle activities in your
>> collections?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Rich Rabeler,
>> Senior Collection Manager
>> University of Michigan Herbarium
>>
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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.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
>
--
Dr. Debra Trock
*Director of Science Collections*
*Senior Collections Manager, Botany*
*President-Elect, Society for the Preservation of Natural History
Collections*
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Drive
San Francisco, CA 94118
dtrock at calacademy.org
PH: 415-379-5363
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