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

[Callomon,Paul]

Hard to say for sure, but my guess is: If an institution insisted on its staff becoming co-authors for having provided access to its collections, the researcher subsequently published without such authorship, and the institution then levied some kind of sanction such as barring that researcher from accessing its collections, then the institution would be breaching its duty of care and unconditional access as a publicly-funded (or at least tax-exempt) body.

In the past, I’ve added folks as extra authors who have pointed out things (such as prior publications) that I’ve missed, added more specimen information and images that substantially improved the work, or made really useful suggestions regarding the analysis. Sometimes these people have been journal reviewers; there’s nothing says you can’t add a reviewer as an author on a manuscript that was substantially revised as a result of their review, but the reviewer cannot insist on it.

This is all about fair play and decency, but converting it into institutional rules crosses a line.

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
callomon at ansp.org<mailto:callomon at ansp.org> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170
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