[Nhcoll-l] vouchers

[Callomon,Paul]

To “vouch for” something or someone means “to support their claim to truth”. If I vouch for your trustworthiness, I support your claim to that quality.

Voucher specimens also support claims to truth that are either published or in some way codified. For example: if I write a paper about mollusks from Bermuda, then all the specimens I mention in it become vouchers for that paper. In the future, anyone who is interested can look at them and see what I was working with.

Vouchers need not be for a published work, but usually refer to a defined study or event. All the material collected in a field survey, for example, are vouchers for that survey – even if nothing about it is published. They support the claim that the survey was carried out and that those species were collected.

Specimens in a general collection, even fine ones, are therefore not vouchers until someone has said something specifically about them or they belong to a named group such as material from an expedition.

A loose definition of “voucher”, then, might be “material evidence for a claim to truth”.

PC


Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
prc44 at drexel.edu<mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170




From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Lennart Lennuk
Sent: Thursday, November 3, 2022 3:03 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] voucher


External.
Hi!

Just to clear it up in my mind. What is word „voucher“ used for?
There is voucher specimens – that means top specimens of a certain species?
Then vouchers when we speak a parts of specimen, like feathers, bloodsamples – is it only in zoology?
And then also eDNA Voucher.

Sorry for a little messy wording.

Best regards!
Lennart Lennuk
Head of collections
Estonian Museum of Natural History
+372 6603404, 56569916

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