FROM THE EDITOR As always, submissions and ideas appropriate for this newsletter, and of course, constructive criticisms are all welcomed. MEETING MINUTES DENVER: September 15, 2000 Directors Meeting President Mauthner called the meeting to order at 1:30 PM. Treasurers Report: Anna Domitrovic, Treasurer, submitted a financial report. She noted the checking account was transferred from Norwest to Wells Fargo on March 24, 2000. A similar transfer of the money market account occurred on June 1, 2000. A final balance of $3,182.70 is present in the checking account. The money market account has a balance of $5,236.40 currently earning interest at a rate of 5.85%. Computer Committee: Tony Kampf, chairman of the computer committee, noted a lack of utilization of the listserver and wanted to discuss other activities on the Web site to the general meeting. Collections Committee: Virgil Lueth, chair of the collections committee, will report of no additions to the current list of orphaned collections or curators. Stolen Specimens: No new announcements were presented other than the earlier reports sent over the listserver. Education: Ginny Mast announced she would step down from the chair of the committee after the Tucson show next spring. Publications: Jean DeMouthe reported that she received no response to a call for articles. During the general meeting, a discussion of potential topics/columns would be presented. New Business: M&M4 a request for financial assistance from the organization committee will be presented at the general meeting. Tucson Program a proposed program about museum tips and tricks will be presented to the general meeting by Suzanne Cowan. Volunteers for Friends of Mineralogy Mineral I.D. booth Jean DeMouthe will convey a request for volunteers to the general meeting. Request for Displays from a new museum in Valencia, Spain Tony Kampf polled the board members if they had received requests for providing temporary exhibits. He will also poll the general meeting. Rocks & Minerals Jean DeMouthe mentioned that Rocks & Minerals would need help for the silent auction, Saturday night. Terry Huizing asked if volunteers could help collect donations for the auction. President Mauthner adjourned the meeting at 1:55. General Membership Meeting President Mauthner called the meeting to order at 2:02 PM in the Lecture Hall of the Denver Merchandise Mart Expo Hall. Approval of Denver Meeting Minutes: Ginny Mast made the motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting as presented in the SMMP Newsletter, v.3, #2. Jean DeMouthe seconded the motion. The motion passed. Presidents Report: Mark Mauthner summarized his report as presented in the SMMP Newsletter, v. 3, n. 2. The two issues raised concerned mineral fakes, restorations, and repairs and publication issues. Computer Committee: Tony Kampf, chairman of the computer committee, reported on updates to the society Web page. He also noted a lack of utilization of the listserver provided the address of the server: smmp@nhm.org. He also noted that recent reports of stolen specimens have been published on the site. Collections Committee: Virgil Lueth, chair of the collections committee, reported of no additions to the current list of orphaned collections or curators. The California State collections are now under the care of Dana Jones, director of the museum, who was introduced to the membership. Ms Jones noted that a curator for the mineral collection would be interviewed in two weeks. Lueth stated a letter of concern would be sent to the San Bernardino County Museum. Tony Kampf noted that new job postings were on the Web site. Education: Ginny Mast thanked those curators who brought samples for the SMMP case. She announced that she would step down from the chair of the committee after the Tucson show next spring. Publications: The publication committee report was postponed until the discussion of New Business. Treasurers Report: Anna Domitrovic, Treasurer, submitted a written financial report to the meeting. She noted the checking account was transferred from Norwest to Wells Fargo on March 24, 2000. A similar transfer of the money market account occurred on June 1, 2000. A final balance of $3,182.70 is present in the checking account. The money market account has a balance of $5,236.40 currently earning interest at a rate of 5.85%. New Business: M&M4 Meeting in Melbourne Australia The international conference on museums and mineralogy consists of presentations and field trips. A request for financial assistance from SMMP to host a reception was made. The suggested amount of support was $500. The matter was opened to discussion. Tony Kampf suggested the SMMP should become more involved in organizing such meetings in addition to the financial support. Ginny Mast asked how large the meeting would be. Previous attendees noted the attendance would be in the 100s. Terry Huizing noted that at least one field trip would have at least fifteen European curators present. A question about how the money would be used was raised. The money would be used to host a happy hour at the conclusion of a daily session and perhaps a pre-meeting reception. The question as to why SMMP should sponsor such an event was asked. Previous meeting attendees noted the reception was a place to increase membership and establish collection awareness. A motion to approve the spending of $500 to host a reception was passed. Publications - Jean DeMouthe reported on the status of new society publications. A presentation at the last meeting on the format of new publications was met with no response. Accordingly, a proposal to solicit abstracts on short topics about solutions to museum problems was proposed. This would be in conjunction with the program proposed for the Tucson meeting. The abstracts would be published on the Web site and later as hard copy available to the public. Tucson 2001 Program Suzanne Cowan presented the proposed program for the spring meeting in Tucson. She asked for slides and information on nifty tips members have used to solve curatorial problems. Tony Kampf suggested a formal abstract be presented and submitted for publication. Announcements: A call for volunteers to staff the Friends of Mineralogy mineral identification table was made. The annual meeting of SPNHC will be held in San Francisco in late June. Members were asked whether or not they had been approached for temporary exhibits by a new museum in Valencia, Spain, was made. Yes respondents were to meet with Tony Kampf after the meeting. A request for help soliciting specimens for the Rocks & Minerals auction was made. It was announced that addresses of those delinquent with respect to dues would be purged from the membership list. The Pacific Northwest Friends of Mineralogy will hold a symposium in Tacoma. Paul Clifford, Cleveland Museum, recently retired. His replacement, Dr. Saja, assumed the position on September 1. A micromineral symposium hosted by the Cleveland Museum will be held this fall. The New Mexico Mineral Symposium will be held in on the second weekend of November. Angela Breithaupt is leaving the Cranbrook Institute. It is not clear if the Institute will be looking for a curator soon. Curator-less collections at the Philadelphia Academy of Science and Field Museum of Natural History were mentioned. It was suggested that membership formally state such facts to the administration of the respective institutions. The mineral area of the Denver Museum of Natural History and Science will be closed for renovations until December. A motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Jean DeMouthe and seconded by Anna Dometrovic. The motion passed and the meeting was adjourned at 2:45. KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR DUES The Societys dues for 2001 are still $10.00 U.S., payable to Anna Domitrovic, treasurer, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2021 N. Kinney Road, Tucson, AZ, 85743. Any directory changes or additions should also be sent to Anna Domitrovic. Please also submit changes to Tony Kampf for the SMMP Web site. SMMP Web site SMMP group email
THINGS NEWSY AND/OR RELEVANT Making SMMP International The 4th International Mineralogy and Museums Conference took place in Melbourne, Australia on December 3-7, 2000. Getting together with fellow mineral museum professionals from all over the world is always an illuminating and energizing experience. At the meeting of the IMA Commission on Museums, we discussed the fact that there really is no truly international organization to unite those involved with institutional mineral collections. SMMP has certainly welcomed mineral museum professionals from outside North America and indeed many in attendance at that IMA commission meeting belonged to SMMP, but at the conference as a whole, the percentage of SMMP members was quite small. By acclamation the members of the IMA Commission on Museums resolved to fully support an effort by SMMP to unite mineral museum professionals all over the world. It now is up to SMMP to determine whether to make such an effort. In doing so I believe that we would be doing a significant service for the worldwide mineralogical community. This is a topic that I hope will be seriously discussed
at the SMMP Board of Directors and Regular Membership meetings in Tucson.
New York State Museum Michael Hawkins announced the New York State Museum has been fortunate to be able to open a new addition to their rather new mineral gallery "Minerals of New York". The new addition includes several interactive elements, including high quality photographs of each specimen on display along with complete data on each one, as well as, a GIS bedrock map of New York State. Some of the new cases are Minerals of the Lockport Group, Minerals of the Little Falls Dolostone, Minerals of the Tilly Foster Mine (the Hancock Collection on loan from the Harvard Mineralogical Museum), Minerals of the NW Adirondack Mining District and Recent Acquisitions. We hope to have all of this up, running and searchable on our Web site soon.
Pacific Mineral Museum This month marks the Pacific Mineral Museums first anniversary. Coincident with this, is the anniversary of the fall of the Tagish Lake meteorite. To mark both events, the Pacific Mineral Museum will be opening a new case featuring the first publicly displayed specimen of the Tagish meteorite. The display will remain until the end of August. | ||||||||||||||||
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