A glimpse of this may not be all that different than a study published in Nature of this year (2019) showing why researchers do not share 3D scans of fossils. I can see similarities to the mineral world, and the figure below would be considered generous. In my 3.5 years at NHMLA (I started in 2016), there hasn’t been a single sample of material donated to our collection from a published research project. Before I arrived at the museum I never submitted material for their collection, but now I do. I didn’t donate my specimens to a museum because I didn’t think it was important. None of my colleagues told me that it would be a good idea to deposit my studied materials into a museum, and in fact, it was never even discussed! I didn’t think a museum would consider them valuable enough, or be of general interest to other researchers. I was wrong.