[Nhcoll-l] Access and authorship in natural history collections

[William Poly]

That sort of agreement doesn't seem to be in accordance with what
constitutes authorship of a publication in a traditional sense, nor would
it align with what most journals would consider to be authorship.  Such
assistance would be deserving of acknowledgement to the staff and to the
institution, which is done typically.

*William J. Poly*

*Research Associate*

*Department of Ichthyology*

*California Academy of Sciences*

*55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park*

*San Francisco, California 94118*

*wpoly at calacademy.org <wpoly at calacademy.org>*

*https://www.calacademy.org/scientists/ichthyology/wpoly
<https://www.calacademy.org/scientists/ichthyology/wpoly>*


On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 8:23 AM Luis Ceríaco <luisceriaco at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> Recently I've learned through a colleague that was requesting access to
> specimens from a big European natural history institution, that it was
> expected for him to include staff members for that given institution in the
> authorship of any research that would come from that access, especially if
> the access was above a certain number of specimens. This is apparently now
> part of the official loan/access agreement of that institution.
>
> I was quite shocked. In the last 15 years I've been an active user of
> natural history collections and had my share of curatorship/collection
> management work, in different countries and different continents, and I've
> never encountered such "in-your-face" and abhorrent demand. Collections
> have been built with public money and are kept through public money (most
> of the times) - thus they should be seen as a public good, not a way to
> enrich the CV of staff members.
>
> That got me curious - is this a new trend or I've been really lucky so far?
>
> --
> _________________________________________________________
> *Luis M. P. Ceríaco, Ph.D.*,
> Commissioner  International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
> Invited Curator of the Herpetological Collections at Museu Nacional de
> História Natural e da Ciência, Lisbon, Portugal
> CIBIO/InBIO - Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources
> University of Porto, Portugal
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luis-Ceriaco
> <https://url.avanan.click/v2/r01/___https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luis-Ceriaco___.YXAzOmNhbGFjYWRlbXk6YTpnOmU5M2IwMmJlNDI1OWVjY2NiMDViNDU4MzgwY2VlMTFhOjc6MjYxOTo0YTA3OTAwZjYzYWRkM2VhNTkyYmJhNjc2ZTEwMzIwYTM4YWEyY2NmZDBmZjNjODNhN2RmZDQ3N2E0MzRjZDZmOmg6VDpO>
> ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0591-9978
> Scopus Author ID: 51260938100
>
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