Date sent: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 15:58:34 -0500 From: William Douglas Boyce wdb@zeppo.geosurv.gov.nf.ca
Subject: UNA Museum terminates geology activity
Greetings,
I'm forwarding this with the permission of Ed Landing.
All the best,
Doug Boyce ___________________________________________________________________________
On Wednesday, April 2, 2003 at 21:41:57 NST, Ed Landing ELANDING@MAIL.NYSED.GOV wrote:
Letters to the Editor
Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff, AZ
To the Editor:
The Museum of Northern Arizona's turfing out of entrepenurial staff (who raised ca. $100K a year for their work) and its closing of the geology and fossil collections has made international news. MNA will also be in breach of federal guidelines on heritage preservation.
Sad that a state whose early economic development (mining) was based on understanding geology and whose future tourist dollars will be based in part on its modern and ancient (fossil) natural history chooses to extinguish access to its heritage. It is also sad that the Museum fails to understand that its collections need nearly constant hands-on work to conserve them (fossils and rocks fall apart if humidity and temperature are not watched) and make them available for research, teaching, and exhibits.
This "vertical cut" in staffing (2.5 positions, with one of these positions grant-supported at no cost to Arizonans!) also means that the University of Northern Arizona is no longer a place with resources in depth that I can recommend to students who want to do a degree in earth science. The staffing cuts mean that endowment celebrating the heritage of America's most famous vertebrate paleontologist, Dr. Edwin H. Colbert, should be turned over to a more receptive, responsible, and appreciative institution.
Collections decay quickly, "migrate elsewhere" through theft, etc., without curatorial care. The use of "visiting scientists" will in no way make up for the dedication and institutional memory represented by the long-term employees to be kicked out. To be responsible to the federal financial support and consequent mandates under which these collections were collected and curated, MNA must turn these collections over to a responsible, accredited museum in the very near future.
Sincerely, Dr. Ed Landing State Paleontologist & Curator of Paleontology Center for Stratigraphy and Paleontology New York State Museum Albany, NY 12230 tel. 518-474-5816 (messages) fax 518-486-3696 elanding@mail.nysed.gov