Managing Natural Science Collections

Robert Huxley was Head of Botanical Collections at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London for 21 years, where he led the team managing the NHM’s 5.2 million plant and fungal specimens. He is now a Scientific Associate at the NHM, an Honorary Curator at World Museum, Liverpool and a Guest Researcher at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin (MfN). Christiane Quaisser has worked on strategic management of natural science collections for more than ten years. In 2013, she became Head of Collections at the MfN, leading the change into the new Science Programme, Collection Development and Biodiversity Discovery. Carol R Butler has led the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History collections work for more than ten years, rising to the position of Assistant Director for Collections in 2012. Her current interests are in collections assessment, developing means of describing collections as resources, encouraging best practices in tracking the uses of collections and in developing communities for broad collaborations. René WRJ Dekker has 35 years of experience in research and management of natural history collections, as Scientist, Curator and Director of Collections. He has authored over 80 papers and a book on megapode birds (The Megapodes, 1995). He has now returned to research as Senior Scientist in ornithology at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2 Natural science collections – their place in society; Chapter 3: Strategy and management; Chapter 4: Governance, legal aspects and policy relating to strategic management of natural science collections; Chapter 5: Staff resources; Chapter 6: Acquisition and deaccession; Chapter 7: Virtual collections; Chapter 8: Access to collections; Chapter 9: Asking the right questions – putting it all into practice