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Volume 11, #1
January 31, 2008 |
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Inside: * * * Board of Directors
President
Past Pres. &
Webmaster Vice President Secretary Treasurer
Terry Ottaway Carlsbad, CA, USA Jeffery E. Post National Museum of Natural History Washington, DC, USA Jamie Newman (09) Dept. of Earth & Planetary Sciences American Museum of Natural History New York, NY, USA Penny Williamson
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TENTATIVE TUCSON AGENDA
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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE If you think the newsletter is a little late this year, you are right. I'm suffering from a bit of writer's block and having trouble coming up with something profound. You are probably not surprised since I'm not all that profound when I feel inspired. Regardless, I've decided to review some tangible progress that the society has realized over the last year. First is our "Best Practices" series. The number one is now posted after everyone had the opportunity to review the draft. If you have suggestions please send them on. These documents are not set in stone and should reflect new developments when they happen. Penny Williamson volunteered to do number two and a draft will be distributed at the meeting and posted on our site for your input. At the meeting I'll be looking for a volunteer to start number three on the topic of their choosing. Hopefully this series becomes the "go to" place information for specific curation topics in mineralogy as well as standard museum practice. George Harlow and Jeff Post have made progress on establishing policy statements on the preservation of natural history collections with the Mineralogical Society of America. I congratulate these members for taking our concerns (post-Philadelphia Academy) to the scientific societies and bringing these issues to our non-museum colleagues. Most people believe museum collections are forever (as they should be) but recent developments have shown how even some of the most famous collections are threatened and even dispersed. Sorry, but no more excuses for not paying your dues! Anna Domitrovic recently established a SMMP PayPal account for dues payments. Tony "webmaster" Kampf, installed a working link on our website. As president and top guinea pig, I had the honor of being to first to pay my dues electronically. It was easy and very straightforward - give it a try! Finally, many thanks to Mike Pierce and Jamie Newman for tag-teaming the education case for this year's Tucson show. Mike coordinated the gathering of specimens and made the labels and placard. Jamie kindly volunteered for installation and takedown. Of course, we'll all miss Jean DeMouthe (traveling in Egypt) who has coordinated the case for many years. Kudos to all members who contributed to the case, I think it will be very popular. Looking forward to seeing you all in Tucson,Virgil Lueth, President* * * 2008 Board of Directors election Three board member terms will be expiring this year. Please be prepared to nominate candidates and vote. Board members whose terms expire this year are: Terry Huizing Terry Ottaway Penny Williamson Note that the term expiration dates of the board members are provided in parentheses in the sidebar. * * * The first "best practices" document about research sampling of collections is posted on the SMMP website at: Best Practices No.1. The second document initiated by Penny Williamson titled, Moving Specimens, will be presented for review at the next meeting. The current draft of this document can be seen at: Best Practices No.2. * * *
PROPOSED msa
POSITION STATEMENT
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