Chris Godbold wrote:

> I suspect
> this is more true for biological, archeaological and anthropological
> specimens because all things collected, excavated, etc. on federal property
> belong to the federal government, i.e. the Smithsonian. I imagine that a lot
> of these specimens are in museums closer to where they were found, rather
> than in Washington, DC.

    The Smithsonian is not the ad hoc repository for all federal
collections. Natural history and anthro/archaeological collections from
federal lands are curated in repositories in the same state as the site of
their collection, whenever possible. This means that many museums around the
country have collections that are federal property but for which the federal
government pays no curatorial or storage fees. This is a huge burden on
museums already stretched to their budgetary limits. many museums conducted
NAGPRA compliance activities on these federal collections with no recompense
from the federal government.

    Michael Lewis

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).