[Nhcoll-l] Role of curator in overlapping projects based on NH material?

[Shoobs, Nate]

Oh, I should add that in one of the cases I actually asked both requesting parties if they wanted to be introduced to the one another and they did end up collaborating (at least they said they were going to!) I think that's the best outcome!
-N

From: Shoobs, Nate <shoobs.1 at osu.edu>
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2026 at 7:00 PM
To: Andrew J. Crawford <crawfordaj at gmail.com>, nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Role of curator in overlapping projects based on NH material?

      I have followed a first-come-first-served approach for situations like this the few times they've arisen. I usually inform the second party that another party has already proposed to conduct the same project or work on the same group of specimens. I do this as a courtesy to help people avoid investing resources in projects where they may get scooped by the earlier researcher. I also inform the first researcher that another party is interested in the same material, so they are aware of the interest in the material in the research community.

      I realize this practice varies a lot between institutions, but I always try to preserve the anonymity of parties making research inquiries/visits to the collection I curate, unless they give me explicit permission to reveal their identity to others. I may mention to external parties like mutual colleagues in general terms that "[person] was visiting/recently requested a loan/etc.", but the specifics of a researcher's project and the specific material they access are kept confidential to people outside of the museum. This comes up frequently when researchers request specimens on loan which are currently on loan to other researchers. I do not reveal the person who has the specimen on loan to the second researcher, only that the specimen is on loan to another party.

      Regarding the matter at hand, though: I would argue that the fact that the second researcher is local and helped develop the collection is totally immaterial to the question of who should have access. Once someone donates specimens to a public institution they should have no special claim over them, at least, not in a way that should be allowed to interfere with others' research on what are supposed to be publicly accessible specimens. I've been scooped before by people using specimens I collected and intended to publish on, and while it stings a bit, I think it's good for science in the long run to not allow individual people to be too possessive of material held by collections.

      I don't know if your first researcher is going to do destructive sampling that would preclude the second researcher from performing the same analysis. If they aren't, then I would let both parties study the same material in the order that they requested access. I have not had a situation where two parties have requested to do the same exact destructive analysis on the same material (at least, not in a way that made it impossible to allow both requests), but I think that is a case where there is a curatorial judgment call that needs to be made for good stewardship of the collection. I think in a case like that, it would entirely depend on the rarity of the material and the confidence I had that the requesting party would have a good chance of producing data of value from the destructive sampling. The collection I run has some specimens of extinct species that are one-of-a-kind. I could see denying a request from a first year grad student with no relevant experience to destructively sample one of those specimens and later permitting an experienced researcher who had a good track record with the method to do what the grad student wanted to do. But if it were not a rare or special specimen, I would follow first-come-first-served regardless of experience level.

I also typically require that people doing destructive sampling hand over raw data from the destructive sampling as a condition of permission to sample. These data are typically kept confidential for 5 years from the date of the sampling and then added to our database.

Best,
Nate


From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Andrew J. Crawford <crawfordaj at gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2026 at 6:17 PM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Role of curator in overlapping projects based on NH material?

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Dear colleagues,

I wonder if there is a standard practice for curators in the following situation, or if anyone would have advice on how to respond.

The Museo de Historia Natural C.J. Marinkelle here at Uniandes, Bogotá, Colombia, is a small natural history collection, but we happen to have the biggest collection of one particular aquatic snake species, with about 250 specimens.   A nice paper on reproductive phenology was already published on this collection:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00222933.2020.1829724<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00222933.2020.1829724__;!!KGKeukY!ygAmy4YK8B9yRxiRbkaZb9CBHI6PjS0ywvotXxruwOGlxo3UspcuJQXkQeawItlRdKm-MplZd0uTc_HBslI$>
thus many specimens have already been partially dissected.

A PhD student from the US visited the collection last year, wrote me months ago asking about the possibility of examining gut content of this sizable series of specimens, and I just received their written proposal last week formally requesting access in June when she comes.

Just days later I get another written request, from a professor at a nearby university who proposes to have an undergrad student do this same project, co-advised by one of the experts who helped develop this collection 10 years ago, and they would like to start right away.

What is my role as curator of the reptile collection?  Would I follow "first come first serve", so whoever arrives first can execute the project, so group 2?  Or whoever sent their request first gets priority, and thus holding the material for 3 months, so group 1?  Or, third, should I try to negotiate between the two parties and encourage some kind of collaboration?  I somewhat know both parties involved (it's a small world), but I just want to do what's fair and/or 'standard' in such cases, if there are any expectations or guidelines from our community?

Best wishes,
-Andrew

Andrew J. Crawford
Department of Biological Sciences, Edif. Ip-208
Museo de Historia Natural C.J. Marinkelle (ANDES)
Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
Tel. +57 1 339-4949 x3270
Email:  aj.crawford244 at uniandes.edu.co<mailto:aj.crawford244 at uniandes.edu.co>
@crawfordaj.bsky.social‬
IG: @craw.crawdad
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