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
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3075 Sanibel-Captiva Road
P.O. Box 1580
Sanibel, FL 33957
(941)395-2233; fax (941)395-6706