Sorry I didn't get a shot of Jim Croft walking on water. Russell giave some great info on SI collectors Chase and Hitchcock.Tug of War between accessibility and preservation. Smithsonian has noted a decrease in visits and physical use of type specimens, but at the same time increased use of the digital surrogates.
Botanical Math
- 350,000 - 450,000 species
- 5 names per species
- 7m specimens (!)
- JSTORPlants as 2.1m specimens (1.8m types)
So still a long way to go.
Recommendations:
- locate all herbarium specimens that have types or possible types
- digitize and make available online
- metadata should ID specimen as a fragment
- metadata should ID the source specimen
- Collections policies should prohibit future dismembering of types
- Amnesty for all fragmenticians
- No repatriation
"Revisiting Type Fragments" by Rusty Russell of Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., USA.
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