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

[Andrew J. Crawford]

What a great question and interesting topic for discussion.  Several issues
have been brought up and points of view shared, to which I will add one
more I haven't seen in this threat.

In principle, I am against the notion that me providing a service as
curator implies I should be on your paper. I am providing a service to the
community, and I hope to enjoy reciprocity in my own work and maintain good
relationships with other collections, as someone already mentioned in this
thread.  Also, the collections are not mine, I am only the temporary
custodian of this national or global patrimony.   Most curators are already
being paid to support the collections and increase their use, and probably
were hired without the expectation of being on papers developed by users of
the collection.  If the visitor is asking too much of the curator, beyond
their normal duties, the curator can always say "No, come do that yourself,
we cannot offer that service at this time."

That said, now imagine you coming from a relatively rich country and you
visit a developing nation, like Colombia, and you invoke the principle of
reciprocity.  The problem is that most collections in Colombia, and likely
in Lower to Middle-income countries (LMIC) generally, just do not have the
institutional support you find at a larger institution in a wealthier
country.     In Colombia, I know of collections with really valuable
material that receive basically no institutional support with literally no
salaries -- functioning by student volunteers and professors paid to teach,
with no institutional recognition of their curatorial dedication.
Sometimes the curator is not paid to curate.  Likely no one is paid for
their expertise, or to process permits, take measurements, or ship
packages. The individual grant paying for the research by the visitor from
a wealthy country is likely many times bigger than the entire annual budget
for many collections in LMICs.  (I know all collections in the world are
short-staffed and short on resources, but the difference between "less than
you need" and "nothing" is harsh.)

Thus, if I want to access for example tissues from a collection in
Colombia, especially a smaller collection with little support, and the
curator asks to be on my future paper, perhaps this is the least I can do
to support them and thank them for their personal sacrifices towards
maintaining these valuable regional collections that support biodiversity
inventories & systematics, and train a population of deserving students. If
the tissues are from a taxonomic group they have experience with, my future
paper will only be that much improved by having them on board as a true
collaborator, anyway.

And if I had a decent-sized grant, I might take the next step and say,
"Thanks for sharing and helping me make my own research better.  Now let's
talk about your ideas. What's interesting to you as a biodiversity
scientist or how can we help you as a curator?"

Anyway, all these issues are context-dependent, and the world is much more
complex than what I outlined above.   I just wanted to mention this
additional variable where we might make slightly different decisions as
contexts change.

All best wishes,
  -Andrew

Andrew J. Crawford
Museo de Historia Natural C.J. Marinkelle (ANDES)
Department of Biological Sciences, Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, South America
@crawfordaj.bsky.social‬
IG: @craw.crawdad


On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 10:07 AM Dirk Neumann <d.neumann at leibniz-lib.de>
wrote:

> Hi Luis,
>
> the case I mentioned was real scientific input (i.e. prior determination
> of faunal remains to species level be sure that requested species are
> included in the bone rubble and the taxonomic IDs are correct). This is
> justified, especially if this material is used for stable isotopes or aDNA
> (because the bones are previously undetermined and unrecognised in the bags
> with the archaeological material).
>
> Also for tissues MTAs - as in our case - this can be justified. Depending
> on the contractual conditions the material war originally accessioned under
> the respective access laws of the Provider Country / Nagoya Protocol. In
> this case, it can be that co-authorship is a contractual requirement that
> arises independent of the scientific input.
>
> Of course, the latter raises questions towards agreed principles for
> co-authorship for publications, and I am not sure if this is the case her,
> just wanted to mention that such linkages with MTAs for tissue request can
> occur.
>
> With best wishes
> Dirk
>
>
> Am 02.02.2026 um 15:27 schrieb 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing listNhcoll-l at mailman.yale.eduhttps://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
>
>
> --
>
> ******
>
>
>
> *Dirk Neumann*
>
> Collection Manager, Hamburg
>
>
>
> Postal address:
>
> *Museum of Nature Hamburg*
> Leibniz Institute for the Analysis
>
> of Biodiversity Change
>
> Dirk Neumann
>
> Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3
>
> 20146 Hamburg
> +49 40 238 317 – 628
>
> *d.neumann at leibniz-lib.de <d.neumann at leibniz-lib.de>*
>
> www.leibniz-lib.de
>
>
>
> --
> Stiftung Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels
> Postanschrift: Adenauerallee 127, 53113 Bonn, Germany
>
> Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts;
> Generaldirektion: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Misof (Generaldirektor), Adrian
> Grüter (Kaufm. Geschäftsführer)
> Sitz der Stiftung: Adenauerallee 160 in Bonn
> Vorsitzender des Stiftungsrates: Dr. Michael Wappelhorst
>
>
> --
> Stiftung Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels
> Postanschrift: Adenauerallee 127, 53113 Bonn, Germany
>
> Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts;
> Generaldirektion: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Misof (Generaldirektor), Adrian
> Grüter (Kaufm. Geschäftsführer)
> Sitz der Stiftung: Adenauerallee 160 in Bonn
> Vorsitzender des Stiftungsrates: Dr. Michael H. Wappelhorst
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20260202/9eb803d3/attachment.html>