> From: BRENINGER, Leah > > I would be intersted to know how other institutions use their fee, do > they use it to hire extra staff to handle the loans or does it go into a > general fund? Our _departmental_ policy on natural history (bird) loans is to not charge for research, on the assumption (so far, always true) that the courtesy will be returned when we borrow. We do, however, loan specimens to artists, and we charge for that. Since this is not a cooperative situation (although some of our "regulars" have donated works to us), and since the cost is passed on to the purchaser of the works, we feel that an attempt to cover our time (processing the loan) and specimen wear-and-tear is reasonable. The funds we raise from this practice are put into a specific account, used for the purchase of books. There are a tremendous number of bird books published each year, and many of the important ones are quite expensive, so this fund is of extreme value to our functioning. Robin Panza Collection Manager, Section of Birds Carnegie Museum of Natural History 4400 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh PA 15213 USA