Well, Doug, you can cry tragedy if you want--and I'll agree!--but I think that our current energy would be better spent in other directions. Have a look at the broader picture. In the last three decades, we have seen natural history museums turning from an emphasis on collections to an emphasis on tourism. We see museums displaying a few objects (sometimes in depth) where many were shown before. Upper-level managers are no longer recruited from among the curators, but from the ranks of lower-level managers and accountants. Exhibitors are hired while curators are let go. I don't understand all of these changes, but I do recognize that collections are relatively unimportant to most museums these days. Theoretically, one could run a successful museum using only travelling exhibits! In practice, of course, it only seems to be cost-effective (as revealed in an issue of Discover awhile ago), but most people haven't figured that out yet. Instead, even the Smithsonian Institution, which has a larger collection of ... well, everything ... than virtually any other museum, is being badgered to make its exhibits glitzier and more spare. I don't bemoan this trend altogether; it is healthy for styles in exhibits to change occasionally, and I enjoy the new exhibits as much as anyone. What is tragic, however, is this insistence that all museums do the same thing. This is where we all lose. Each museum should have its own goals and its own unique atmosphere. They should not all attempt to educate children, for instance; this is only one function of museums. And some should consciously and proudly maintain the standards of the past by not changing every exhibit to match changing fads in design. As a historian as well as a paleontologist, I have gained great pleasure in seeing "fossil fossil exhibits" that have been maintained as they were decades ago, to better understand what people saw and enjoyed many years ago. And some museums should emphasize collections and curators rather than exhibits and third-quarter profits. As for keeping unique specimens within the state, I've had this discussion with several people before. The Geological Survey of Alabama has maintained and enlarged its fossil collection for more than 150 years. The Alabama Museum of Natural History is almost as venerable, and its recent history has been uneven, but a state-of-the-art facility has been erected with new laboratory facilities and compactor cabinets on tracks. This museum maintains collections of fossil and recent shells as well as other objects of natural history, and the staff has completely changed since the time when the mollusk collection was given away. The new staff regards the giveaway as a dreadful mistake that they would like to repair. I do not understand why you are so reluctant to reposit specimens there when so much has changed in the interim, while still being so concerned about unique specimens leaving the state. Surely it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Incidentally, it's unfortunate that specimens were labeled as "[John Doe]", a legal term meaning "Anonymous." The majority of the collections of the Geological Survey of Alabama and Alabama Museum of Natural History were collected or donated by only a few people, whose contributions can often be recognized by their handwriting. I suspect that much of the "John Doe" material now in the Florida Museum of Natural History was collected by Herbert H. Smith, who gathered immense collections of terrestrial and freshwater mollusks. His minute handwriting is not difficult to recognize. As to the marine material, a great deal of it was donated by Maxwell Smith, E. R. Schowalter, and Truman H. Aldrich, but much of this material was acquired by purchase or trade, and so came ultimately from many collectors. Ironically, during the 1950's, the Alabama Museum acquired quite a few orphaned collections, as the Florida Museum does today. I leave it to you Conchlanders to answer these questions (and to break away from the now separate discussion of "leg."). What do you think of current trends in exhibit design? Are they interesting--or tragic? Do you think that the public is better served by having a few, very large regional collections of mollusks, or a lot of little ones? In recent months, you've watched funding crises threaten major collections in New Zealand, Natal, and Hawaii. If this keeps up, there won't be many left in 50 years. What can (or should) be done to solidify the position of malacology in natural history museums? Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama