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Collections Policy

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11. Accessioning Acquisitions. Before any nationally or internationally renowned, monetarily valuable, or scientifically extraordinary collection is accessioned into a Florida Museum of Natural History collection, a summary report must be completed and filed in the permanent records of that research collection. The report shall contain the following information:

1. Which research collection will receive the acquisition.
2. Name of collection being acquired.
3. Summary of contacts with owner or administrator; names and dates.
4. Name of collection owner if different from initial contact.
5. Items in collection, e.g., number of objects or number of lots, books, notes, photographs.
6. Statement about the provenience of the objects - a brief summary should be provided for large collections containing hundreds of objects with varied or extensively detailed provenience.
7. Copies of documentation certifying to the legality of the collection, e.g., export permits from the country of origin, U.S. federal or state permits, statement from owner.
8. Signed letter, document, or certificate from the owner stating that title to the collection is being transferred to the Florida Museum of Natural History or, if appropriate, to the University of Florida Foundation.
9. Date collection was transferred to the Museum.
10. Names of people involved in the acquisition.
11. Date and signature of the curator and/or collection manager.
12. A copy of the acknowledgment certificate given to the owner.
13. Information detailing the circumstances of original acquisition and the curatorial history of the collection.

If the collection is a large one, which will require considerable curation (i.e., expense) before it is fully incorporated into the research collection and available to researchers, the following additional information must be included:

14. How the collection will be transported to the Museum.
15. Cost of transporting the collection to the Museum.
16. Where the collection will be held while it is being processed into the research collection.
17. Projected time needed for curation.
18. Projected cost of curation, including extra staff, cabinets, labels, computer entry, etc.

Before any sizable collection can be acquired and accessioned, the Chairperson of the department and the Director must be made aware of the curatorial time and budget that will be committed to integrating the collection into the research collection.

Examining specimens in the bird collection.

12. MAINTENANCE OF THE COLLECTIONS

13. Curation. All the collections in the Florida Museum of Natural History shall be curated according to the highest professional standards. That curation aims to preserve and maintain the collections, and the objects and associated data they contain, so they will be available in perpetuity for use in studies and exhibitions (the rare exceptions are discussed below under '19. Disposal' and '26. Destructive Analysis'). To assure that those standards are met, each collection in the Museum shall be assigned the responsibility of a particular curator.

14. DISPOSITIONS

15. Legal and Ethical Constraints. All of the provisions for disposition shall be consistent with the ethical and legal constraints set forth in '6. Ethics of Acquisition', '7. Laws Governing Acquisition', and '13. Curation' above. No transfer or disposal shall be made of any objects held by the Museum in bond. The Museum acts as custodian of objects for the broader benefits of society. This, at times, requires permanent removal of objects from the Museum. Such removal, i.e., transfers or disposals of objects involving even their physical destruction, is protected by FS § 240.515. The Museum's legal, professional, and moral obligation to maintain its collections for the public good extends even to dispositions. When dispositions are appropriate, every effort should be made to transfer objects to other museums or public institutions where they will continue to be available for research and education. See also '26. Destructive Analysis' below. Such transactions must not profit individuals or private institutions. A record of all transfers and disposals shall be maintained as part of the permanent records of the museum.

16. General Policy on Dispositions. Objects in the collections should be retained permanently if they continue to be useful to the purposes and activities of the Museum; if they continue to contribute to the integrity of the collections; and if they can be properly stored, preserved, and used. Upon the recommendation of the curator, objects may be disposed of by formal deaccessioning when the above conditions no longer exist, or if it is determined that such action would ultimately improve or refine the collections, upon compliance with all legal requirements.

17. Recommendation of Curator Each object being considered for deaccessioning must meet the following criteria as evidenced by the written recommendation of the curator in charge to the Chairperson of the department and the Director, and based upon one or more of the following:

• The object lacks value for scientific research or documentation, or for educational use.
• The object no longer retains its physical integrity, its identity, its provenience, or its authenticity.
• The object is not relevant to or consistent with the Museum's function and purpose.
• Exchange of a redundant object (one of a series of similar objects with similar provenience in the collection) with a recognized public systematics collection or natural history museum will improve and refine the Museum's collection.

Such deaccessions shall be made by transfer or disposal.

18. Transfer. Permanent transfers of scientifically valuable objects may be recommended by the curator in charge and approved by the Chairperson of the department and the Director in compliance with the statutes and regulations of the State of Florida. Except in extraordinary circumstances they shall be made only to other public institutions. Transfers to private individuals shall be made only when the curator can demonstrate a benefit to the collection or Museum, and only after approval of the Director.

All objects or collections with a fair market value reasonably expected to be in excess of $5,000.00, shall require prior approval of the Director before transfer from the Museum.

The deaccessioning of human remains and cultural objects for repatriation to Native American tribes is a specialized form of transfer mandated by federal law in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The Florida Museum of Natural History is committed to compliance with this legislation and has formed a Repatriation Advisory Committee to oversee the implementation of the federal regulations. As there is no statute of limitations associated with NAGPRA, this committee will be a permanent division of the institution.

In addition, the Museum must comply with Florida law dealing with unmarked human burials as set forth in Florida Statutes § 872.05 which requires,

"...that all human burials and human skeletal remains be accorded equal treatment and respect based upon common human dignity without reference to ethnic origin, cultural background, or religious affiliation."

Expanding the database on invertebrate fossils.

19. Disposal. Over the years, as standards of object documentation change, as the collections grow and objects suffer deterioration, biological and anthropological objects that formerly were a significant part of the research collections may become surplus. Removal or culling of such objects from the research collections is a continual and routine process. Special provisions are made in Florida Statutes § 1004.57(1) for the disposal of nonessential vertebrate fossils (see Appendix II).

Often these objects are used in the Department of Interpretation's education program. If such objects are not needed by the Museum's public education program, the curator of the research collection may give them to appropriate educational institutions for use in teaching activities, or if no alternative exists, they may be discarded completely or destroyed. Such objects for disposal shall have all identifying marks and numbers removed from them and the disposal shall be noted in the appropriate research collection catalogues by the curator in charge, offered first to the Department of Interpretation, and then disposed of in accordance with these guidelines. Appropriate notification of such disposals shall be sent to the Chairperson of the department. Objects shall not be given or sold privately to Museum employees or their relatives or representatives.

Departments of the Museum may devise specialized discard procedures for certain types of collections, but any such specialized procedure must be approved by, and on file with, the department Chairperson and the Director.

Some objects in the Museum's archaeological collections were acquired from U.S. federal agencies with the legal obligation to curate these objects in perpetuity. Before the Museum can dispose or transfer any such objects from federal agencies, the appropriate agency must agree in writing to the deaccessioning.

20. Private Collections: Conflicts Of Interest and Ethical Constraints. If a curator, collection manager, technician, research assistant, or other Museum employee were to maintain a private collection in his or her professional field of interest, the temptation would be great to put particularly valuable objects in the private collection rather than in the Museum collection. Because of this potential conflict of interest, Museum employees are prohibited from having private scientific collections, or objects of scientific interest in collections, that are in their professional field of interest, e.g., physical anthropology, archaeology, malacology, herpetology.

Collections of natural history objects of primary scientific interest and associated field notes or xerographic copies made by professional Museum employees with the use of Museum funds, direct or indirect, complete or partial, in the broadest sense, within the field of the persons employed, e.g., zoology, anthropology, shall be Museum property. Similar collections made by other Museum employees outside their professional field of interest, e.g., archaeology, malacology, ornithology, and outside the areas in which the Museum has active interest or maintains curated collections, are permitted with the Museum reserving the option of first refusal. No authority shall be granted the Museum to restrain or restrict the principal investigator's use of his or her own field notes. Should the principal investigator leave the Museum staff, a complete copy of the field notes shall be left with the Museum.

Personal collections, where permitted by the above policy, may be amassed by Museum employees only through compliance with applicable state and federal laws.

These restrictions also apply to anthropological type collections and synoptic collections in natural sciences. However, if a person leaves the Museum, such collections may then be made available to his or her new institution.

In addition, every student working in the Museum is subject to the above policies which will be communicated by consultation between the student and his or her immediate supervisor in the Museum. Objects in private collections made before association with the Museum, or before 18 September 1979, are exempt from the policy in this 'conflict of interest' section.

The private collections policies set forth in this section do not apply to non-paid associates and courtesy appointments. However, such volunteers and honorary colleagues are prohibited from adding to their private collections any objects acquired as a result of their association with the Museum. This 'conflict of interest' policy shall be carried out with the best interests of the Museum in mind, recognizing the commitments of the Museum to the State of Florida and the professional interests of the individuals.

Any dispute arising from this section shall be resolved by an ad hoc collections committee composed of one curator from Anthropology, one from Natural Sciences, one collections manager from the department concerned, and the Museum Director.

Examining specimens in the zooarchaeology collection.

21. USE OF COLLECTIONS

22. Loans. Materials from the research collections may be loaned to or borrowed from other natural history museums, universities, and other appropriate public institutions for research and/or exhibition purposes. A record of all incoming and outgoing loans shall be maintained as part of the permanent records of the museum.

23. Incoming Loans. Incoming loans shall be accepted only for purposes of research or exhibition under the following conditions:

1. No indefinite or long-term loans shall be accepted, but exceptions may be authorized by the Director on recommendation of the staff.
2. Incoming loans shall not be accepted if they do not meet the same standards set forth in '6. Ethics of Acquisition' and '7. Laws Governing Acquisition' above.
3. While the loans are in our care, they will be handled, conserved, stored, and exhibited, as required by the lending institution or otherwise accorded the same professional care as if they were part of the Museum's collections.
4. Objects sent to the Museum for forensic identification by law enforcement agencies constitute a special class of loans. Because they may be used as evidence in court cases, access to forensic objects must be limited to those Museum staff members directly involved in their identification so as not to jeopardize legal chain of custody. When not being examined, forensic evidence objects shall be stored in locked cabinets or other secure facilities.

24. Outgoing Loans. The Museum lends objects to qualified institutions for scholarly research and exhibition subject to the policies and practices consistent with each of the Museums collections. However, the following pertain to all outgoing loans:

1. Objects shall not be lent to individuals except under exceptional circumstances and then only on the recommendation of the Curator and with the approval of the Director. Before lending to individuals, the curator in charge must make every effort to seek an institutional affiliation or endorsement for that person. If an institutional affiliation is impossible to establish, then written reasons must be stated with the loan form.
2. Objects requested by students will require faculty or institutional endorsement and will be considered the direct responsibility of the faculty member or institutional representative endorsing the request.
3. Loans shall not be transferred by the borrower to any other institution or individual without prior written approval. This also applies to the Department of Interpretation which may not transfer objects from the Museum's research collections to another institution for exhibition without prior written approval of the curator in charge of the collection.
4. The maximum duration of any loan shall be one year, but shall be subject to renewal.
5. Objects shall not be loaned for destructive analysis except as provided in '26. Destructive Analysis' below.
6. The return of objects sent for forensic identification shall comply with the legal chain of custody procedures required by the law enforcement agency involved.
7. Shipment of outgoing loans shall comply with labeling and permitting requirements of all applicable state and federal laws and international treaties, including the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and the UNESCO Convention of 1971.

25. Access to Collections. During normal operating hours, the collections shall be accessible for legitimate research and study by responsible investigators, subject to procedures necessary to safeguard the objects and to restrictions imposed by limitations of space and facilities, exhibition requirements, and availability of appropriate curatorial staff.

Access to anthropological collections by representatives from Native American Tribes shall be available upon request and shall be subject to the same restrictions as research access.

26. Destructive Analysis. Since aspects of it are related to '13. Disposal', research involving destructive analysis is a specialized use and requires special consideration. Destructive analysis is not allowed, except under exceptional circumstances, and requires the prior approval of the curator in charge. The Museum's legal, professional, and moral obligation to maintain its collections for the public good extends even to destructive analysis.

On occasion, destructive analysis of specimens yields information which benefits the research collection and is in the public interest. This is particularly true when redundant, not unique, specimens or materials are involved.

When destructive analysis is appropriate, every effort should be made to limit destruction to less than the entire specimen and to save what remains so it will continue to be available for research and education.

Requests for destructive analysis must detail the specimens or materials required and the procedures to be conducted. Any remains from the analysis remain the property of the Museum unless other provisions are specifically allowed in writing by the curator in charge prior to destruction. In cases involving the dissection of biological specimens, the undestroyed component parts shall be returned to the collection along with associated identifying tags or marks. The data resulting from the destructive analysis shall become part of the collection of the museum and will be maintained with the records associated with the materials analyzed. At the discretion of the curator in charge, arrangements may be made to divide duplicate histological slides and similar preparations between the researcher and the collection.

27. Use in Exhibitions. The Museum places original, reconstructed, and duplicated objects from the collections on public exhibition. These objects remain the curatorial responsibility of the research collections from which they originated, and shall be treated in a manner consistent with the policies stated above. If the research curator in charge determines that exhibition will damage the objects, or is damaging the objects, from the research collection, the situation shall be remedied immediately. Such remedy may entail removal of the objects from exhibition with approval of the research curator in charge and the Chairperson of the department after consultation with the Chairperson of Interpretation.

28. Commercial Use of Museum Objects. The Museum collections normally are not available for commercial non-educational use. However, at the discretion of the curator in charge and with approval of the Director, objects may be made available for reproduction for commercial sale. The curator and other Museum professionals shall be the judge of quality control, selections, and marketing with approval of the Director. Such commercial use shall be consistent with this collections policy. Copyright for reproduction of Museum objects shall remain the property of the Museum or the University of Florida Foundation (as dictated above in '4. How Natural History Objects and Collections are Acquired').

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