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

[Luis Ceríaco]

Thank you all for your input.

It is not strange to have curators and collection managers from the
different institutions we work with or consult specimens as co-authors. In
many cases it makes sense and it is completely legitimate. This can be
discussed between the leading author and the staff.
As Dirk said, in some situations there are extra efforts that the staff
needs to make to make the collection accessible and that can be recognized
by the authors (while not necessarily as authorship). In other situations,
when someone cannot physically visit the collection and request the
collection manager to, let's say, count the scales of 200 lizards, that
most likely can turn into what we envision as a collaboration and thus
deserves authorship.
What shocked me the most in this case is that it is written in the official
documentation (in this case a MTA for tissues), that a "demand of 50
specimens justify co-authorship" of the local staff.
I'm aware of some curators that "force" themselves into papers that used
their collections, but having this into official policy is a whole other
situation...

Em seg., 2 de fev. de 2026 às 14:11, Taylor, Sarah <sarah.taylor at uconn.edu>
escreveu:

> I have been offered authorship on publications (which I declined) twice
> after researcher visits to our herbarium. From the researchers'
> perspective, the contributions I made to their research (time, expertise on
> recommending specimens they might want to examine, assistance with
> equipment, and assistance accessing publications) merited recognition above
> mention in the acknowledgments section. From my perspective, I didn't offer
> original ideas, contribute to analysis, or write the resulting papers.
>
> In my experience, asking for authorship in exchange for loans/research
> visits is definitely NOT common or a new trend. I also think it's likely to
> be ineffective - every collection I know of, including mine, asks
> researchers to a) acknowledge the collection in publications and b) send a
> pdf or, at the least, citation of publications, and the success rate of
> request (b) is well below 20%. The success rate of request (a) seems higher
> but I have definitely found peer-reviewed publications that use images of
> CONN specimens with zero reference to our herbarium anywhere in the paper.
>
> This is an interesting topic and two more replies have come in since I
> started typing - I'm looking forward to the discussion.
>
> Best,
> Sarah
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Sarah Taylor, PhD
>
>
> Scientific Collections Manager
>
> George Safford Torrey Herbarium (CONN)
> Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
> *University of Connecticut*
> 75 North Eagleville Road, Unit 3043
> Storrs, Connecticut 06269-3043
> U.S.A.
>
> P: 860.486.1889
> F: 860.486.4320
> *https://biodiversity.uconn.edu/herbarium/
> <https://biodiversity.uconn.edu/herbarium/>*
>
>
>
> Pronouns: she/her or they/them
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Scott A
> Schaefer <schaefer at amnh.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2026 8:55 AM
> *To:* Luis Ceríaco <luisceriaco at gmail.com>; NHCOLL-new <
> nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [Nhcoll-l] Access and authorship in natural history
> collections
>
>
> *External sender: This message was not sent through the UConn email
> system. It might be safe, but use caution before interacting with links,
> attachments, or requests.*
>
> This sounds like an egregious abuse of the principal of reciprocity
> inherent to research use of museum collections and is not something I’ve
> heard of in my 40+ years of museum work. Whether or not such collections
> were built and are now maintained by “public money”, the understanding of
> reciprocity (= you do for me, I do for you) is part of what facilitates
> research use of museum collections and extends from loan approvals and
> processing to shipping and packaging. I would hope this example is isolated
> to some misplaced thinking by uninformed people.
>
> I am also aware of other recent practices that threaten the reciprocity
> agreement, such as charges levied for permit applications required for both
> the loan approval and the export. In response, curators and collection
> managers may be encouraged to avoid such lending practices by refusing to
> participate— both in borrowing and lending to these institutions.
>
> The community would be served by hearing from others that have been
> impacted by these practices.
>
> Scott
>
> __________________________________________
>
> Scott A. Schaefer, Ph.D.
>
> Dean of Science for Collections and the
>
>        Public Understanding of Science
>
> Director, Institute for Comparative Genomics
>
> Curator and Professor
>
>
>
> *American Museum of Natural History <https://amnh.org/>*
>
> 200 Central Park West
>
> New York, NY 10024-5192 USA
>
>
>
> Office: 212-769-5652
>
> Mobile: 215-570-2943
>
> Email: *schaefer at amnh.org <schaefer at amnh.org>*
>
>
> *From: *Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Luis
> Ceríaco <luisceriaco at gmail.com>
> *Date: *Monday, February 2, 2026 at 8:23 AM
> *To: *NHCOLL-new <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
> *Subject: *[Nhcoll-l] Access and authorship in natural history collections
>
> *EXTERNAL SENDER*
>
> 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
> ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0591-9978
> Scopus Author ID: 51260938100
>


-- 
_________________________________________________________
*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
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0591-9978
Scopus Author ID: 51260938100
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