[Taxacom] Scientist curators versus collection managers

[JOCQUE Rudy]

There is a tendency for musea and other institutions that harbor natural history collections, to replace scientist curators by curators whose only task it is to manage the collections. Although the idea might seem ideal and alleviate the task for scientists, increasing the time they can allot to research, I have sincere doubts as to whether it is a good idea to make the switch. Collections become some kind of a dead instrument when they are no longer under the custody of people that really work in them. 
This is a request to those curators and researchers that have witnessed this kind of change. I would be most obliged if they could share their impression of how (in)efficient the change was.

(sorry if this topic has already been discussed but I could not find anything in the archives)

Rudy JOCQUÉ
Head of Invertebrates non-insects section
Royal Museum for Central Africa
Department of African Zoology
Leuvensesteenweg 13
3080 Tervuren, Belgium
Tel.: +32 2 769 54 10 Fax : +32 2 769 56 95
 
JOURNAL OF AFROTROPICAL ZOOLOGY
____________________________________
 
A peer reviewed journal on Africa's fauna
              without page charges
http://www.africamuseum.be/publications/journals/JAZ
 
See the goblin spider Planetary Biodiversity Inventory website, at http://research.amnh.org/oonopidae


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