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Volume 17, #2
August 27, 2014 |
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Inside:
Board of Directors
President
Past President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer
Webmaster
Board Members:
Julian Gray
Alan Hart
Terri Ottaway |
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* * *
G'Day from Down Under. At the Tucson
meeting in February, your SMMP committee had a re-organisation of
the deckchairs: Jean remains our faithful Secretary; Anna continues
her meticulous appraisal of our finances; Katherine is our VP who
organises the public "lecture" after the Tucson meeting; Virgil
stood down and I am now President. International Girl-Power for the
first time! Committee members are Virgil, Julian, Terri, Alan &
Tony. We want SMMP to be your voice and to be relevant in the
digital age. Tony is diligent behind the scenes as webmaster and in
charge of the listserver, which connects us all, all over the globe.
My first official function is to acknowledge the sterling
stewardship of out-going President, Virgil Lueth. He has been
president for as long as I have been a member (2003) and we have
thrived under his friendly and tactful guidance. Our profile has
been positively raised in the last decade. I couldn't ask for a
better mentor. He is still on the committee as past-president, so
don't let him get complacent.
Secondly, this is your society. I have noticed that many active
members are unfinancial and strongly encourage you to get back in
the black. Dues are only $10
per year and Anna has organised Paypal for ease for members whose
first currency is not USD. Alternatively, there is the Munich
meeting where Peter Davidson is happy to take your money and for
those in Australia, I'll do the same.
We have a small bank balance and are keen to support appropriate
projects. If you have any ideas, please contact the committee.
Unfortunately, most of the notices to the listserver recently have
been about stolen specimens. Please take time to review the security
of your collection so these notices diminish and our communications
are about helping each other.
Are collections at risk in war-torn countries? Can we help? I
am aware that just because a collection is curated, it is not
necessarily safe, having recently lost the teaching compactus room
to a machine, as space decisions are based on how many people
frequent the space how often, so if you are organised and put
teaching specimens in teaching areas, you are doomed. However,
nothing precious was lost and it was timely to remove low quality
material to other homes. Just because it has been picked up
shouldn't mean it stays.
At the IMA meeting in South Africa,
September 1 to 5, 2014, the venue for the "Mineralogy and Museums"
conference in 2016 will be decided, so by the Denver Show we will
know where that will be. These meetings are fun and informative, and
a great way to network with other curators. Consider planning to
give a talk or to be part of M&M8 in 2 years' time. We have SMMP meetings at the Tucson
(February), Denver (September) and Munich (October) mineral shows.
If you are able, please come along. Each year Jean puts together an
SMMP Educational case, along the lines of the Show theme for Tucson
and Denver. Please support her with specimens and information.
Penny Williamson |
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MINUTES OF THE TUCSON MEETING
Click on the link above to view the minutes.
* * *
museum news The Rice NW Museum in Hillsboro, Oregon recently appointed Julian Gray as Executive Director and Leslie Moclock as Curator, following Dr. Lara Brown's move to Denmark, where her husband will be working as a post-doc. Lara will continue to be associated with the Rice NW Museum as a member of its board. Leslie will be coming to Denver, so please make her feel welcome. Sarah Timm has been hired to fill Julian's vacated position at the Tellus Science Museum, Cartersville, Georgia. Congratulations to all. New contact information for all of those mentioned above can be found in our on-line roster.
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BEST PRACTICES PROJECT
The first "best practices"
documents about research sampling of collections are posted on the SMMP
website:
BEST PRACTICES REPORT NO. 1:
Research Sampling of Collections
BEST PRACTICES REPORT NO. 2:
Moving Specimens
We are looking for more in
the series - please submit your idea to the board at the Denver meeting
or contact Virgil Lueth
(vwlueth@nmt.edu).
* * *
The SMMP Grant Program
Awards are to support curatorial research and methodologies that address
one or more of the Society of Mineral Museum Professionals (SMMP)
mission statement goals: 1) foster recognition of mineral science
collections as essential scientific, educational and cultural resources,
2) promote support for growth, maintenance and use of collections and
exhibits and, 3) advance museum practice through cooperation in the
development, review and dissemination of information. Amounts vary up to
a maximum of $1000 per grant. Grant awards determined by SMMP Board of
Directors. Grant applications are available on request. Applications are
due August 1st and award notification on October 1st.
Guidelines are available on our website:
http://www.agiweb.org/smmp/support-SMMP.htm
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Dear Colleagues,
We will, as in previous years, be organising a meeting of the SMMP
(Europe) and IMA-CM during the Munich Mineral Show, Friday October 24th.
For further information, please contact me at
P.Davidson@nms.ac.uk.
Peter Davidson
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BEST PLACE TO DONATE
INITIATIVE
Mary Johnson began a survey
of our membership in order to compile donation information for museums.
The results of her survey are available on an excel spreadsheet. To
download this spreadsheet, click on the link above.
* * *
American Geological Institute (AGI)
Natural Science Collections Alliance
NSCA)
Although the Society of
Mineral Museum Professionals maintains no official ties with the
Commission on Museums (CM)
of the
International Mineralogical Association (IMA), the Commission
resolved at its December, 2000, meeting in Melbourne, Australia, to
support SMMP's efforts in uniting mineral museum professionals
worldwide.
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You are encouraged to
interact with your fellow SMMP members via our list server:
Please remember that when
you reply to an email sent via our list server, you will be replying to
the sender, although you have the option of copying the membership.
Tony Kampf processes
additions to and deletions from the list server. That way we limit the
list to our membership and if a member decides that they want to be
dropped from the list, Tony will know whether to send them the SMMP
Newsletter by snail mail. Note that you are only able to send via the
list server from your email address that is on the list server. This
should be the same one that is used in our on-line roster.
* * *
SMMP dues are $10.00 U.S.,
payable to Anna Domitrovic, treasurer, 6118 W. Lazy Heart Street,
Tucson, AZ 85713. Any directory changes or additions should be sent to
Tony Kampf. In Europe, dues can be remitted to
Peter Davidson, National
Museums of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, SCOTLAND.
To make paying your dues
easier (especially for non-US members),
a PayPal account has been established and installed on our website. You
can use your credit card or your own personal PayPal account. Just go to
our Dues webpage.
Note that you can check
your dues payment status on the SMMP on-line
roster. The year shown in the last column indicates the last year
for which you have paid. If you are delinquent, please remit your dues
payment as soon as possible.
Remember to renew your
membership. If you are planning to pay dues at the Denver meeting, help
Anna by filling out a membership application with your dues payment. Do
it beforehand and save time at the meeting! |
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