The Albuquerque Journal published an in depth article about the impacts of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) funding hiatus for collections. The article focuses on the Museum of Southwestern Biology, which is part of the University of New Mexico and is the recipient of several grants from the Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR) program.
Dr. Jon Dunnam, the museum’s senior collections manager for mammals told the newspaper: “This one makes no sense at all, because a lot of the new programs that are coming out of NSF are going to be relying on collections like this to take care of all the specimens that come out of these new initiatives…This is the kind of biological infrastructure that is absolutely going to be necessary going forward.”
The article also reported on the letter sent by NSC Alliance, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections to NSF last month.
Read the article at http://www.abqjournal.com/762853/news/collection-at-risk.html.