[Nhcoll-l] Access and authorship in natural history collections
Bentley, Andrew Charles
abentley at ku.edu
Mon Feb 2 09:43:36 EST 2026
Although I do agree that demanding co-authorship on publications for collections use is probably not warranted or justified in most cases, I think the attached will add to this conversation.
I also do think that if researchers were more collections advocacy aware and got into the habit of reporting publications and sequence information from specimens cited in their research to the relevant collections, this would go a long way to building advocacy and attribution metrics for collections that would ensure their longevity and their ability to showcase their worth to potential funders - more than any citation of a curator or collection manager could ever do. There are way to many researchers who, once their analysis and subsequent paper is complete, do not bother or are just lazy. Collections are critical infrastructure for downstream research of all types and without attribution metrics available to highlight that, collections become increasingly at risk of being sidelined and neglected by those holding the purse strings.
Andy
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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA
Tel: (785) 864-3863<tel:%28785%29%20864-3863>
Fax: (785) 864-5335<tel:%28785%29%20864-5335>
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3093-1258
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>
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________________________________
From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Luis Ceríaco <luisceriaco at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2026 8:27 AM
To: Taylor, Sarah <sarah.taylor at uconn.edu>
Cc: NHCOLL-new <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Access and authorship in natural history collections
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<mailto: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
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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/
Pronouns: she/her or they/them
________________________________
From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> on behalf of Scott A Schaefer <schaefer at amnh.org<mailto:schaefer at amnh.org>>
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2026 8:55 AM
To: Luis Ceríaco <luisceriaco at gmail.com<mailto:luisceriaco at gmail.com>>; NHCOLL-new <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Access and authorship in natural history collections
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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<mailto:schaefer at amnh.org>
From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> on behalf of Luis Ceríaco <luisceriaco at gmail.com<mailto:luisceriaco at gmail.com>>
Date: Monday, February 2, 2026 at 8:23 AM
To: NHCOLL-new <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto: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
[https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4wZ5SeVd89_kAncItat_P1VY9QpO0E_pfBtJDOS8YDqfC4o6bfR6sQQNFdyg9UEAJsit-B2tQU]
--
_________________________________________________________
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
[https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4wZ5SeVd89_kAncItat_P1VY9QpO0E_pfBtJDOS8YDqfC4o6bfR6sQQNFdyg9UEAJsit-B2tQU]
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