[meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

From: Peter Davidson <P.Davidson_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:27:13 +0100
Message-ID: <B3AE086B03B2B44D87427A2DF66678AC5CF059_at_nmsexch01.nms2k.int>

Martin

Thanks you for your contribution. I am glad you agree with me on all of the points. Please don't worry about the language. I speak German, but I know that I also fail to pick up on the various nuances and differences in every speech. This is because I have very little opportunity to use it on a day-to-day basis.

I am glad you accept that a museum, especially a National Museum, has an obligation placed upon it by the Government of that country to continually enhance the collections for the benefit of all the people and to make these collections available to everyone by whatever means possible.

Within the museum, every department has a different policy for collecting. In the geological departments, it is our policy to continue to build up as comprehensive a collection of Scottish material (minerals and fossils) as we possibly can so that we can provide material for research and exhibitions. This includes loans to other researchers and museums. The meteorite collection does not have a policy at present. This is because I have only taken over the collection - I am a mineralogist - in the last few years and I have not had time to formulate a new policy.

It would be impossible to try and acquire Scottish meteorites. The vast majority of available material is already in museum collections either in Scotland or London. This mitigates against enacting legislation about collecting meteorites as there is simply no material to collect - that we know about. We are left with looking at the collection and seeing where any significant gaps lie in terms of meteorite types and seeking to fill those gaps.

The possibility of new falls cannot be discounted. This is, I believe, where difficulties may lie. As far as minerals are concerned, while we continue to examine the classic localities for new material, we also rely on a network of private collectors who keep us informed about new occurrences in their areas. This works well as we can provide analytical services to them, in return for some donations. This also alerts us to new localities which we might try and visit ourselves. Meteorites are a different matter. They are much more random and can fall anywhere at any time. The law protects important mineral and fossil sites, but meteorites have no legal status. I would hope that if a fall is spotted, someone can contact me and I will try and get to the site.

I don't want to set up a deliberate conflict between private collectors and public bodies. I also think that a legally binding system of restricting the collecting and exportation of meteorites would be unproductive and unworkable. It is like the "war" on drug abuse. The arguments about legalising drug use is centred in the desire of authorities to keep it visible and therefore controllable but incurring huge public health bills to deal with users, or to ban drug use and drive it underground requiring huge police costs. Any restriction on collecting would have to have effective policing to work, and this is just not possible.

I would favour a simple notification scheme whereby any fall is notified to the authorities and allows institutions such as museums and universities to opportunity to collect themselves. But this too relies on the honesty of people and with meteorite fetching such a high price, this leaves it open to abuse from unscrupulous collectors. Any system really needs to be discussed with all parties and a voluntary code set out, agreeable to all.

We are not your enemies

Best Wishes

Peter Davidson
Curator of Minerals
 
National Museums Collection Centre
National Museums Scotland
242 West Granton Road
Edinburgh
EH5 1JA
Phone: +44 131 247 4283
p.davidson at nms.ac.uk
www.nms.ac.uk
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Martin Altmann
Sent: 08 July 2009 19:20
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

Hello Peter, Confrere,

Finally a curator writing on the list to limn that complex from his angle,
many thanks for that.

Peter, if you read my postings, you will find, that I agree with all your
points.

(somewhere you read maybe something behind the lines, which in fact doesn't
stand there, perhaps it's also because I can't express myself so nuanced in
that foreign language, my fault).


Well.
Nobody on the list here and in the private meteorite sector casts the
slightest doubts on the eligibility of national institutes to get parts of
the finds and falls of their country into their collections.
On contrary they all welcome that.

The problems are different and unfortunately quite dramatic.

To most of them I wrote a whole epic here on the list,
Today I won't recapitulate that all,
because today I'm ill.


The main question is: What does the "official" side want.

A) Do they want to have large quantities of rare meteorites and new
recoveries?
Hence more an objective target pointing in the direction of research, space
exploration ect.

B) Do they want to have saved their national heritage or however one could
call it?
That is a more historic and conservatorical approach.

 
Subsequent question is:

What for instruments do we have and shall we use to achieve the first goal
or the second goal or even both.

(and with the special regard, that many institutes don't have anymore the
financial funds, which they had the 200 years before).

The instruments urgently suggested or already working make the goals A) and
B) to incompatible opposites.

and as all data and statistics undisputedly demonstrate,
these instruments counteract both goals.

So we should get perhaps first clarity, what the "official" side wants.

(btw. the division into private and official antagonists is, as often you
can read it though, unhistoric and highly artificial).

And then we have to think, whether we do want an improvement, a persistence
on the status quo or a worsening.

Most of my posts tended to avoid at least that the situation get's worse.

For today,
Martin


PS. Mark, I have to profoundly disagree.

The meteorite prices of the last 200 years, as well as the expenses of
institutional collections are preserved and knownof today .
They prove that meteorites never were so cheap than in this decade
and that the meteorite prices on the commercial sector are - by far - the
lowest in history.
(which makes that not so Gordian situation especially bizarre).






-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Peter
Davidson
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 8. Juli 2009 13:02
An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

This is my first posting on this list - please be gentle with me. I have
only been on the list a matter of a week or so and I seemed to have walked
into a veritable storm. I would like to share my views with you as a
curator. Please forgive this rather long mail.

 

Taking a posting from Martin Altmann dated 7th July as my starting point,
here goes.

 

I have never heard a law being described as "exotic". Do you mean idiotic?

 

I can in no way speak on behalf of all curators, far less Australian ones. I
can only give you my own viewpoint but I do know many curators from
Australia, mostly mineralogists, and please believe me when I tell you they
are fine people and not the narrow-minded, nationalistic people hinted at in
a number of e-mails. I also noted that Martin Altmann stated that everybody
on the list was a "lousy layman" which is not only patently untrue but just
a little sexist. But I digress.

 

Curators are every bit as dedicated to their collections as private
collectors are. We are not faceless bureaucrats (or similar) existing in
some Kafkaesque nightmare world hidebound by rules, and seeking to restrict
everyone else by creating a spider's web of red tape to trap the unwary.
That notion is as ridiculous to me as the presumption that all dealers
(minerals or meteorites) are shady and unscrupulous. As a curator at a
National Museum, I am obligated by law (yes, I know!) to preserve and
protect the collections of the museum and by extension, the nation. I choose
to do this. I work in the museum because I want to. Every curator I have met
shares with me a love of the specimens that they curate. We also share a
passionate believe that it is our duty to bring our collections to the
notice and attention of the public, and to make them available to
researchers and other curators. Believe me when I tell you that museum
curators/conservators are not well paid. We do it for love - well mostly.
When I joined the museum in 1975, I also had to undertake never to start and
build up my own collection. The collections of the museum ARE my
collections.

 

I also feel that Martin overstates the influence scientist have at
governmental level. Yes, some scientists are asked to advise on certain
matters, but in the end it is the politician that decides. My observations
of this hated group, politicians that is, leads me to surmise that if some
short term political advantage can be gained by appealing to the masses, fed
to satedness by a largely right-wing populist press (the tabloids in the
UK), then they will always take that course of action, no matter what the
consequences are. This very often goes against the advice of
scientists/curators and negates many decades of good interaction between the
public and private sectors. As I mineralogist, I am painfully aware that the
market for display quality specimens has now passed beyond the reach of
publicly-funded museums. The meteorite market is no different.

 

Nonetheless, as a curator at a National Museum, and I hope you can
understand this point of view, there is a duty to collect for the Nation
everything we can in order that we can research, interpret and explain to
the people of Scotland, its historical, sociological, artistic and
scientific heritage. The question raised by many contributors to the list
is: should meteorites fall into that category? Clearly the Australian
Government thought so, and so did the UK Government in the 1960's when
legislation was introduced to Parliament but never passed into law.

 

We already do our utmost to protect other geological sites. This policy is
well intentioned and it can be argued that "fixed" geological outcrops,
either mineralogical or palaeontological are a finite resource. If
unscrupulous collectors plunder the site and remove all the material, then
it is lost forever. Meteorites are different in that they are not "fixed"
but are random in the sense that they can fall at any time, in any place.
However, from my point of view as a curator, ought I to have the desire to
possess in the National Collection, a sample of each of the four Scottish
falls? I do have that desire and the fact that the museum doesn't possess
all Scottish meteorites leads to a feeling of both consternation and
frustration. But it is a situation I accept

 

Why don't you go and collect them yourself I hear you asking. Well, the
short answer is - we would love to. We do go on collecting trips, but these
are limited by budgetary constraints primarily, but also by the general
workload faced by all curators. This is why we have tried to build a network
of private collectors across the country that will work with is to the
benefit of both parties. But the inescapable fact is that the market in
geological specimens has moved onto a level which museums find it difficult
to operate in. We rely to a large extent on donations or possibly exchange.
Private collectors know that they can sell their specimens on the open
market and receive a much better price than a museum can offer.

 

I was heartened to hear that some private collectors and dealers are in
favour of a greater collaboration with scientists and museums. All of us who
love meteorites need to continue to work closely. We require the raw
material to undertake research, and this gets fed back to the public through
our publications. Scientists do find new information in old specimens; we
would not be scientists if we did not constantly search for new data. But I
would just like to finish with this thought. Many young people are familiar
with meteorites through the media and the internet, but for many, the only
opportunity they get to see and touch them is through museums and their
curators. Many indeed of the list members may have been inspired to go and
collect by seeing meteorites in a museum.

 

Martin. Please do not take this as a personal attack. I find your e-mails
well agued and thoughtful. Indeed it was your email that inspired me to pen
this message. I have spoken about this in other lists, in other places. The
meteorites will continue to fall, long after we are all gone. There should
be enough for everyone.

 

Don't forget us!

 

All donations gratefully accepted.

Peter Davidson
Curator of Minerals
?
National Museums Collection Centre
National Museums Scotland
242 West Granton Road
Edinburgh
EH5 1JA
Phone: +44?131 247 4283
p.davidson at nms.ac.uk
www.nms.ac.uk
?
?


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Received on Thu 09 Jul 2009 09:27:13 AM PDT