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

[John E Simmons]

This is a very interesting discussion, and I appreciate all of the
viewpoints expressed so far. It is an important discussion to have.

I have worked with natural history collections for nearly six decades
(since my freshman year in college in 1969) so I have seen a lot of changes
in the field, particularly in who collects specimens, who has collections,
and who uses collections. I was a full-time collections manager at the
California Academy of Sciences (4 years), at the Natural History Museum at
the University of Kansas (26 years), I have been an independent collections
consultant since 2008, and I have published widely on collections and
collection care.

FIRST--the idea that a staff member of an institution should be
automatically included as an author simplify for making a loan of specimens
or access to specimens possible is hogwash. If that was a standard, I would
have an astounding publication record. A simple acknowledgement is
appropriate, but nothing more. The very idea seems to go along with the
ridiculous trend of having 15 or 20 authors on a single publication. Enough
with authorship inflation already.

SECOND--Back in the Pleistocene when I first started working collections,
there was an informal quid pro quo among collecting institutions. Staff or
students from institution A would borrow B, who would loan to C, and so
forth so that the costs of preparing loans or providing access  (which can
be very high) were evened out over time. This has not been true since the
advent of molecular systematics in the late 1980s. Most (but not all) of
the people borrowing specimens or accessing specimens in collections today
do not work for collecting institutions and do not collect specimens that
others might use, so the system is out of balance. Passing along the costs
of borrowing specimens, in particular, is reasonable. Most curators can
easily determine which institutions are reciprocal  (e.g., offer collection
access or loans themselves) and which are not. This is only fair. The
collecting institutions are already burdened with the cost of upkeep of
collections; they should not be expected to bear the cost of loans to
researchers who do not have collections to loan. Researchers without
collections would not expect cost-free use of scanning electron
microscopes, etc., and should not expect cost-free collection loans,
either.

Yes, collections belong to all of us, but no, we do not all help support
collections, do we?

--John

John E. Simmons
Writer and Museum Consultant
Museologica
*and*
Research Associate, Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery
Penn State University
*and*
Investigador Asociado, Departamento de Ornitologia
Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima


On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 2:42 PM Erika Natarajan <erika at natarajan.ca> wrote:

> I think this discussion highlights a broader ethical distortion in
> scientific publishing and research culture. Publications were originally
> meant to disseminate discoveries and advance knowledge. Over time, however,
> institutional reward systems have shifted the focus toward authorship as a
> metric, sometimes regardless of the actual quality, rigor, or originality
> of the data. In that context, authorship risks becoming a form of currency
> rather than a reflection of genuine intellectual contribution.
>
> I would also like to gently challenge the assumption that collections in
> “wealthier” or “first-world” countries are inherently better supported or
> better managed than those in countries such as Colombia. I am currently
> volunteering in a large museum in a high-income country, and what I observe
> daily is that heavy bureaucracy, rigid administrative structures, and
> institutional inertia often hinder good collection care and research access
> — even when there is an excellent and highly committed curator.
>
> Conversely, many collections in Colombia operate under severe material
> constraints, yet are sustained by extraordinary scientific dedication, deep
> local expertise, and strong engagement with regional biodiversity. Their
> main limitation is not a lack of competence or commitment, but a lack of
> institutional recognition and structural support. These are fundamentally
> different challenges.
>
> For these reasons, I think it is misleading to frame this issue as a
> simple dichotomy between “rich country” and “LMIC” collections. Both
> operate under systemic pressures that can distort ethical practices in
> different ways. Mandatory or expected authorship, however, remains
> problematic in any context if it is not based on real intellectual
> contribution.
> Supporting underfunded collections should be achieved through fair and
> voluntary collaboration, shared research agendas, funding, training, and
> infrastructure — not by redefining authorship as compensation. Ultimately,
> what matters most is not who signs the paper, but the discovery itself and
> its contribution to scientific knowledge. Perhaps emerging tools, including
> AI, can help us refocus evaluation on scientific content and impact rather
> than on name accumulation.
>
> Erika Isabel Natarajan
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 11:16 AM Andrew J. Crawford <crawfordaj at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>
>>>
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>>> --
>>>
>>> ******
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *Dirk Neumann*
>>>
>>> Collection Manager, Hamburg
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Postal address:
>>>
>>> *Museum of Nature Hamburg*
>>> Leibniz Institute for the Analysis
>>>
>>> of Biodiversity Change
>>>
>>> Dirk Neumann
>>>
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>>>
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>>>
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>>>
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>>>
>>>
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>>> Stiftung Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels
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>>>
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>>> Grüter (Kaufm. Geschäftsführer)
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>> 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.
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> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
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