[Taxacom] Translocation of an entire natural history museum

[Mary Barkworth]

 Would it help also to  know how many people visit large natural history museums in big cities - and so discuss the money spent, not just in the museum but in the businesses round about? Perhaps there are some numbers coming from impact of the US govt shutdown? 

Mary



-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Barna Páll-Gergely
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2019 4:48 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Translocation of an entire natural history museum

Dear Colleagues,

Probably most of you have not heard yet that the Hungarian government is planning to translocate the Hungarian Natural History Museum (HNHM) from the capital to the eastern part of the country.
Funded 220 years ago, the HNHM is one of the most important institutes in biodiversity research and taxonomy in Central Europe. We are keeping 10-12 millions of artefacts, including more than one hundred thousand type specimens of almost fifty thousand taxa (mostly insects).

If we have to move, most of the staff have to quit (very few colleagues seem to be ready to leave the capital for a small town in the eastern part of the country) and find a new job, therefore, most of the collections will remain without experienced staff at the time of packing, transportation and unpacking and even later.

We fear that this poses a great danger to the priceless collections, and try to find as many arguments and support against this plan as possible.

Maybe it helps if we can present foreign examples to decision makers

- what happened to such a collection in similar cases (i.e. when an entire natural history museum moved to a distance of 2-300 km (not within the same city or area)?
- how long did the preparation phase take before moving?
- how much extra personnel was necessary for the preparation?
- how many artefacts were damaged?
- what are the most important factors that slow down such a process significantly?

also, we would be grateful for published case studies what sort of damages resulted in cases when a collection remained without care for a longer period.

Thank you for your help, comments and advice

Zoltán Fehér, Dávid Murányi & Barna Páll-Gergely


--
Barna PÁLL-GERGELY, PhD
MTA Premium Post Doctorate Researcher
Plant Protection Institute
Centre for Agricultural Research
Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA)
Herman Ottó Street 15,
Budapest, H-1022, Hungary
Tel: +36304673580
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