As a scientist, I think that your ideas about sharing your collections are intriguing...  The images might be useful for ID purposes in a reference catalog, if someone wanted to do all of the molluscs found in each state's waters for example.  What would be more useful from scientific perspective, would be taxa lists and abundances from each collection along with GPS coordinates and ancillary environment of collection data.  Now to make this really useful, all shells would have to be counted and would have to come from true bulk collections with attention paid to both big and small size fractions, not just the attactive or rare ones.

I can tell you that a museum will probably not be interested in private collections unless they will be given on "permanent loan" as gifts because of the work involved in cataloging and also because of the need to insure valuable specimens.

Chad Ferguson

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:51:31 -0500
>From: John Varner <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: privacy & collections
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>   Hmmm...
>   Are you talking about personal or institutional
>   collections?
>   I always feel weird that I can’t share the beauty
>   of my collection with more people - as though I
>   somehow owe it to the creatures that have sacrificed
>   their lives so their beauty can be enjoyed.  I have
>   even tried to arrange to loan it to the local
>   University for temporary display (with
>   rather disappointing results).  I certainly
>   wouldn’t mind the images of my collection up for
>   grabs in cyberspace, but there is something vaguely
>   threatening about the notion of my identity going
>   with the images.
>
>   - John Varner
>   Amherst, MA
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>
>     From: Andre Poremski
>     To: [log in to unmask]
>     Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 10:22 AM
>     Subject: privacy & collections
>     Hello all,
>
>     As I scroll through thousands of wonderful sold
>     images on dealers’ websites, I wonder where
>     these beautiful shells rest.  My question is: what
>     do you think are some of the reasons why sold
>     galleries don’t reveal which collections the
>     shells reside in?  Would it be interesting
>     / useful to know?  Protecting the collector’s
>     identity I’m sure has important implications,
>     but as collectors, would you mind if sold shell
>     data on other sites (with the rights to the photo)
>     made reference to your collection (or your museum
>     for that matter)?
>
>     Regards from Washington, DC.
>     Andre Poremski
>
>
Chad Ferguson
500 Geology/Physics
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH  45221-0013
(513) 556-3732
(513) 265-6197-cell
(513) 556-6931-fax

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