I'm having some trouble with my system so here we go again. > I have to agree and sympathize with John Simmons' position on this > discussion regarding the pitfalls of valuations, but I would like to > respond to a few of his comments. > > 1) The analogy to art museums being priced out of purchasing on the > market is apt. It is unfortunate that this is now happening to > vertebrate fossils and other natural history specimines, but fashion > will change and these objects will again be made available to museums. > (If it is like the art market then it will be as tax receipted gifts > when the purchaser finds them unsaleable after a period of time.) It > might be cold comfort to know, but it is better than no comfort. > > 2) History and Art museums/galleries have not aquitted themselves very > well over the years, but we are getting better. Deaccessioning and > disposal practices have improved because aministration and Boards have > recognized the monitary value of objects. Most museums will not > acquire any object with an eye to disposing of it in order to > fundraise (at least in Canada). > > 3) An intersting point on sets of things. If the clearly stated > purpose of the collections is to illustrate the diversity of an object > type (an egg set to use your example) then you can not dispose of a > single one without destroying the integrity of the set. This would be > the strongest arguement against the type of behaviour you mentioned. > > 4) My last comment (for now :-)). As a collection manager and > material culturalist I think we need to view natural history > collections as we do collections of man-made things. They are > assembled for a purpose and can tell us as much about who put them > together as about the specimines themselves. For example, Darwin's > beetle collection or Lyell's geological specimines are as much records > of these men, as they are of the insects or stones they contain. In > the same way as archivists preserve the creator's order to better > understand the mind that created an archival collection, I believe > natural history collections should also be preserved in total and intact. > > Richard Gerrard >