An example of the diamond reference drawers at NHMLA. Each one of these small plastic boxes holds a single diamond of known origin. 1) Visit these remote places, somehow gain access to the mines, broker a deal to take the diamonds (at a price), get through customs, and hope that the minerals obtained possess interesting inclusions. Or, 2) go to a museum, search the curated diamond collection for South Africa and Brazil specimens, select the mines of interest, get preliminary data on all potential minerals to ensure usability, and borrow specimens for further investigation. The second option is far simpler and more efficient, and obviously, this scenario can be applied to other mineral research projects. I also realize that not everyone can afford to go to a museum, and we are trying different things to solve this problem. Of course there is value in the first option, but it is less accessible option to most people.
Predicting the Future. It is impossible for a museum curator to predict what minerals of interest will be needed for the ever-advancing sciences in the future, so we curators hoard everything in anticipation that something might be needed. Who wants to deaccession something that might have potential unlocked secrets? I don’t want to be that person, but it is something we have to do to keep the museum clean, up-to-date, and have room to grow. One predictable thing is the need to study the past; building upon past research rather than starting from scratch. By reevaluating old studies and previously analyzed materials with new analytical techniques and hypotheses, we would be adding to the total accumulated wealth of knowledge — seems obvious. Instead, what normally happens is that a researcher’s minerals used in those scientific publications get disposed of when they move to another institution, or when they retire.
Most universities do not have a good track record of preserving scientific materials (or even university museums). As a graduate student, I remember moving a retired professors research specimens into the “hazardous waste” bins to clear out space for a new incoming professor. At the time, I felt like I was throwing away history, but none of the bottles were labeled with information that I could decipher (just a bunch of notebook numbers, odd looking codes, and abbreviations). And when I moved from my previous institution to NHMLA, I’m sure that any minerals I left behind were also disposed of as waste.
A museum can be the house for those scientifically valuable minerals because, by its strategic framework, it has the staff and resources to catalog, house, conserve, loan, and perform research on those minerals. But museums need help in building that repository, and that help needs to come from the scientific community. Researchers have to trust that a museum will care for, and make available, these materials forever.
So what is the hesitation?
Why are mineralogists not donating their studied, but no longer being used, specimens to museums?