By Meredith A. Lane
This article was published in Museum News, January/February 2001.
Natural history collections are a cultural heritage, an intellectual trust, and a societal and institutional responsibility. But despite the fundamental and inestimable value of natural history specimens to science and society, every year more institutions, agencies, corporations, and individuals divest themselves of their collections. In such situations, a positive outcome arises when the “orphaned” collection is “adopted” by an existing natural history collection; a negative outcome results when the “orphan” is abandoned and/or destroyed. The latter represents a loss of tragic proportions, and the former, while desirable, is not as simple to achieve as might initially appear.
This article outlines the complexities of the adoption of orphaned collections, and recommends strategies for dealing with those complexities and the accompanying expenses. The characteristics of the orphan-adoption situation are similar for all types of natural history collections. Thus, the principles outlined here are relevant for any museum of natural history.
Most current attention is directed to the fate of collections built up by individual researchers over the course of a career and held by small colleges and universities that are shifting the focus of their biology programs. But these are not the only potential orphaned collections in the country. Many potential future orphans reside in large colleges and universities, which may choose to eliminate organismal biology disciplines and collections as their priorities and financial situations change. For example, the Allen Hancock collection of invertebrates, once held by the University of Southern California, in the 1970s was transferred to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Likewise, the fish collection of the University of Miami has recently been relinquished to the care of the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. And perhaps an even larger volume of collections (that defies quantification) resides in the hands of private individuals. Many, if not most, of these individuals have not made any specific plans for the disposition of their collections after their retirements and/or deaths.
It is unlikely that the nation’s existing museums can absorb more than a small fraction of the potential orphaned collections without financial assistance beyond current levels. Most, if not all, of the largest collections in the country are essentially full and already have insufficient budgets for staff and supplies. They cannot absorb new orphans without new storage space, additional staff, and funds to support the additional curation that will be required.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the funding agency that is usually targeted for financial assistance with orphan-collection adoption. But though the costs of research support have increased steadily, NSF’s yearly allocations from Congress have remained relatively level. In addition, the number of institutions applying to the Biological Research Collections Program—the major source of natural history collections funding within NSF—nearly tripled (and the quantities requested quintupled) between 1991 and 1995.
Given these fiduciary constraints, how can we ensure that orphaned collections are adopted and cared for, to the greatest benefit of science and society? The answer is to target funding sources other than NSF for assistance with the adoption of orphaned specimens. In addition, people or entities divesting themselves of collections, as well as natural history curators and the collections community, must rethink their attitudes and policies.
What is required is a new understanding and partnership between collections personnel, funding agencies, and foundations on one side, and those individuals and entities (both government and non-government) on the other that wish to deposit collections in natural history repositories. Costs of curation are considerable, but crucial. Museum staff who accept such collections must do so responsibly—either by asking for immediate funding and/or endowments to pay these costs, or by not accepting such specimens at all. Individuals and institutions must realize that depositing specimens without at least assisting with curatorial funding is no better than abandoning them to the vagaries of time or tossing them in a garbage dumpster. Owners of collections with scientific and cultural value have a responsibility that extends beyond the accumulation of the specimens. Unfortunately, all too often those who relinquish collections are absolved of responsibility by collections personnel, who accept orphans without obtaining concomitant contributions toward their upkeep.
The collections community needs a set of community-defined standards and protocols for orphan adoption. These should include an agreed-upon set of criteria for determining whether a particular museum should adopt a given orphan. The criteria should be based on a sound scientific rationale and include standards for behavior for the abandoning and donor entities and a set of guidelines for approaching NSF and other funding agencies for financial support. In addition, a referral network that could help find the most appropriate repository for particular orphan collections would minimize wasteful competition among museums.
A publication outlining the community position on these issues would help to explain the principles of the discipline to the rest of science, to guide the principals in orphan-adoption interactions, and to inform funding agencies during the decision-making process. Such a document does not currently exist, although this article is intended as a step in that direction. Below, I outline the respective roles of participants in an adoption.
Working Definitions
Curated collection: A collection that is cared for to counter the detrimental effects of time, made available for scientific study, and has data that contributes to the world’s understanding of biodiversity and policy decisions about the conservation of biodiversity.
Orphaned collection: A collection with scientific value owned by an individual or group that no longer wishes to house and curate it.
Abandoner/abandoning institution, corporation, agency, orindividual:
An abandoner relinquishes a collection (with or without financial or scientific reasons for doing so) without locating, transferring the collection to, and/or providing support for its future curation at an adopting institution.
Donor: An individual, institution, corporation, or agency that locates a repository for an orphaned collection and supports its future curation. The donor thus reduces the time the collection spends as an orphan, preventing deterioration of the specimens and speeding the rate at which they become available to the scientific community. Here, “supporting the future curation” means both monetary assistance and/or in-kind contributions (such as providing transportation or labor for moving the collection, etc.).
Salvaging institution: An institution that accepts any orphan collection of which it becomes aware.
Adopting/receiving institution: An institution that works with abandoners to improve their concept of collections responsibility, has a well-thought out acquisitions policy, accepts scientifically appropriate orphans in its collections, and curates and makes the collection available to researchers.
Acquisition policy: A set of guidelines and standards that sets forth scientifically sound reasons for accumulating specimens, based on a geographic, chronological, or taxonomic focus. It also allows the museum to refuse proffered orphaned collections because the expenses incurred would be detrimental to the institution’s stated mission or because there is no scientific rationale for accepting them. Finally, the policy outlines the criteria for deaccessioning and culling (sorting through the collection and eliminating specimens with no scientific data or value), and provides the rationale for collections growth based on the institution’s stated mission.
Characteristics of an Acceptable Adoption of an Orphan Collection
In an ideal world, owners would maintain their collections in perpetuity and make them available for scientific study. The opposite of that ideal is almost too disastrous to contemplate. The guidelines below are an attempt to mitigate the ill effects of relinquishment of collections. They first describe the differences between a donor and an abandoner, then the actions that make an accepting entity an adopter rather than a salvager, and finally the tasks that donor and adopter should accomplish together.
Donor
1.The donor inventories the collection; determines the legal ownership of all specimens/lots; returns any loaned specimens to their home institutions; and curates, sorts, and culls the collection, if necessary. Specimens/lots obtained under questionable conditions (without collection and/or export permits, for example) should be reported to the appropriate authorities, who will determine their disposition. Repatriation issues should be considered as well.
2. Field notes, photographs, and other ancillary materials should be appropriately coded so that they can be matched with the appropriate specimens/lots, if this has not previously been the practice. All such materials should be gathered, sorted, and labeled.
3. With adequate lead time (ranging from a few weeks to two or more years, depending on the collection), prior to divestiture of the specimens, the donor identifies the most appropriate repositories for the collection and contacts those institutions. At the very least, the donor should publicly announce the availability of the collection and accept contacts from institutions that might be interested in accepting the collection.
4. The donor discusses with potential accepting entity(ies) the needs for curatorial support for the collection, and prepares to make monetary or in-kind contributions toward the costs of fulfilling those needs. Examples of such contributions include (but are not limited to: 1) payment of the moving costs plus an agreed-upon amount per year; 2) provision of an endowment of sufficient size to yield salary for one or more collections-care personnel (ranging from a curatorial assistant to an endowed curatorial chair); 3) agreement to curate the collection in its new site for a specified period of time; 4) agreement to create a database or pay for a database of the labels and/or catalogues. Depending on circumstances, because different donors will have access to varying levels of monetary resources, other creative solutions can be generated. The emphasis should be on the philosophical understanding of and commitment to the care and preservation of the collection itself. This commitment may be manifested in one or more ways, but it must be demonstrated.
5. The donor transfers all rights and title of ownership of the specimens to the receiving entity, or executes a quit-claim deed (i.e., a document stating that the donor has no future right to the collection) if current status of ownership cannot be determined.
6. Once an adoption agreement has been made, the donor helps to sort, pack, and move the collection and any ancillary items or, at the very least, provides some funding for this purpose.
Adopter/Receiver
1. The curator of the potential host collection carefully considers the proffered specimens and decides whether to enter the negotiation process based on scientific rationale and mission of the institution as stated in the acquisitions policy. S/he also considers the short- and long-term expenses that might be incurred by the adoption.
2. The curator discusses with donor the overall costs of curation of the potential adoption, and ascertains the commitment that donor is willing to make, at least in the short run, toward these costs, either monetary or in-kind or both. The curator should not accept any collection without at least an in-kind, good-faith contribution.
3. The curator (now, the adopter) identifies all possible sources of funding for the initial move and long-term curation, and works to obtain funding from donor, adopter, and outside funding sources (if any). S/he develops partnerships with other organizations interested in preserving the cultural and scientific heritage represented by the collections. S/he exercises entrepreneurial leadership within institution, among professional societies, or among corporate and private funding sources (and NSF, if necessary) to generate a spirit of cooperation.
4. The adopter prepares for the transfer and plans time-efficient and cost-effective methods for making the specimens accessible for study (rehousing, setting up a database, etc.) in their new home.
5. The adopter oversees and manages the physical move of the specimens and their ancillary material, and incorporates the adopted collection into the main collection as quickly and efficiently as possible.
6. If necessary, the adopter applies to NSF and/or other funding agencies for assistance with the expenses of moving and/or incorporating the orphan. Such a proposal would explain how the aforementioned goals have been achieved, and describe the financial contributions of both adopter and donor. The adopter also explains the museum’s acquisition policy and the place of this particular adoption within the mission of the institution. The budget in such a proposal should be the minimum required to protect the specimens from the ravages of time in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Donor and Adopter
The donor and the adopter negotiate the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that clearly lays out: 1) the transfer of ownership and title to the collection from the donor to the adopter, and the time at which the transfer takes effect; 2) the rights and responsibilities of each party prior to, during, and after the physical transfer of the specimens; 3) the methods and timing that will be employed during the physical transfer; and 4) provisions or penalties for non-performance of agreed-upon tasks or monetary exchanges. This MOU should be signed by at least one official from each entity and is legally binding. Thus it is important to determine who owns the collection prior to the adoption and/or the execution of the MOU.
Formal and complete transfer of title is critical to the success of a collection adoption. Today’s legal climate demands that the entity holding a collection act immediately when cultural or societal conditions change (e.g., changes in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species [CITES] treaty, United States Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] policy, international agreements concerning repatriation, etc.). In addition, funding sources that have invested in an orphan-adoption project will want assurance that the original institution will not seek the return of the collection after a change in administrative policy or for some other reason. Further, the adopting institution, regardless of the endowment provided by a donor, will bear the lion’s share of the costs of curation. With those responsibilities should come certain rights, including the right to ownership of the collections in its care.
Conclusion
The actions and operations of the collections community must become more businesslike than they have been in the past. The collections deserve the best care possible, i.e., curatorial practice that incorporates careful consideration of fiscal and scientific responsibility. Corporate donors will not invest in the museum community until they see behavior that reflects responsible stewardship. Therefore, NSF should encourage the development of standards of community practice by funding those orphan-collection adoptions that demonstrate adherence to these principles. Those projects that are closest to the ideals outlined above will gradually raise the standards of practice.
As scientists, most collections personnel revere the specimens in their care and deplore the actions of abandoners. But sometimes staff react in alarm to the news of an impending abandonment and agree to adopt too hastily. Later, they realize that the orphan collection is more a burden than a blessing and turn to NSF for assistance. Unfortunately, the sheer numbers of such situations have made it impossible for NSF to fund any but the most desperate cases and sometimes not even those. If NSF is to assist in such instances, institutions must put the same amount of planning into a collections management proposal that they do into a research proposal. Remember, too, that an NSF-supported project is more likely to obtain funding from other sources. Collections personnel must be not only scientists, but also concerned and wise investors of curatorial expertise and effort and of such funds available for the many tasks that face the collections community as a whole.
Meredith A. Lane is senior vice president for science and vice president, Biodiversity Research Group, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. From 1995 to 1997, she was program director, Research Collections in Systematics and Ecology, Division of Environmental Biology, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va.
