Jose,
My wife, friend and I just visited all the spaces in the museum
that you have talked about and are in 100% agreement in what you said about
the museum. We watched as your volunteer "collectors" helped to curate
parts of the collection and after talking to them we all wished that we
were closer than Eureka, California to be able to join in on "the fun" of
helping. We just got back from the Los Angeles Museum of natural History
and our friend Jim McLean and deposited about 45 species of fossils, recent
shells (identified and unidentified, but with data) and in this way we
feel, as amateur conchologists, that we too can contribute, each in our own
way, a bit to science.
We heartily agree with you Jose that as many of the Conch-lers that
can should not visit just the downstairs exhibits but to see the museum
staff at work. Thanks Jose.
Dan Yoshimoto
>Dear Art,
>
>You wrote:
>
>>The Sanibel (Bailey -Mathews) museum probably sees itself as a
>>display museum.
>
>The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum sees itself, according to its mission
>statement and latest version of its long-range plan, as an educational
>organization that also aims to provide information and means for research on
>regional mollusks. It is obvious that the major interface of the museum with
>the public is its ever-growing Great Hall of Shells, with 30+ thematic
>displays on shells and mollusks (probably one of the best, if not the best,
>collection of exhibits of its kind in the world). We also provide programs
>to schoolchildren of Lee and Hendry counties in Florida. Funded by local
>grants and designated gifts, we provide free access to the museum and
>transportation to school children K-12. We have urge visitors to watch our
>slide show on the biology of some of the most common local mollusks (all
>this handled by voluntary docents), which shows four times every day. But I
>want to call your attention to our rapidly growing mollusk collection where
>about 10 voluntary collection personnel, all shell collectors themselves,
>work incessantly sorting, grouping, identifying, and cataloging our
>malacological material. The BMSM is one of the very few natural history
>museums that started its collection from scratch using an electronic
>collection catalog, an in-house design based on Acess-97 that includes 43
>fields and allows us to print labels (in acid-free paper), hard-copy catalog
>pages (for our non-computer-litterate users), and other kinds of reports.
>The backbone of our collection are a number of very fine collections donated
>by amateur collectors (about 90 %). Thanks to gifts from a myriad of
>collectors and friends, our library carries ALL major English-language
>malacological journals (many of which received in exchange for The Nautilus,
>which we publish), many foreign ones, most shell club newsletters, and about
>4,000 books on shells and diverse aspects of the systematics and biology of
>mollusks. The BMSM also regularly hosts (and sometimes helps financially
>through the R. Tucker Abbott Visiting Curatorship fund) the visits of
>national and international scientists that wish to work in the Sanibel area.
>Before I jump out of the soapbox (this is quite a mouthful for a Saturday
>evening, I hear creaking noises coming from the box, and my five-year-old
>daughter Julia loudly demands her nightly reading), I want to invite you
>(Art and everyone else on Conch-L) to pay a visit to the Shell Museum, roam
>the Great Hall of Shells, check the new exhibit on micromollusks, and the
>soon-to-open "Cephalopoda, Pinnacle of Molluscan Specialization", which
>includes a 13-foot giant squid model prepared according to the latest data
>gathered on that elusive beast (if you visit after mid-January). But make
>sure that you also call me from the reception desk for a tour of the
>collection area and library. If you're into shells, you'll have a hard time
>deciding which was the best part of your visit!
>
>Best,
>
>Jose
>__________________________________________________________
>Jose H. Leal, PhD
>Director - The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
>Editor-in-Chief - The Nautilus
>[log in to unmask]
>3075 Sanibel-Captiva Road
>P.O. Box 1580
>Sanibel, FL 33957
>(941)395-2233; fax (941)395-6706
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Dan & Hiromi Yoshimoto
1164 Vista Dr.
Eureka, California
95503-6018
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
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