Curating Biocultural Collections: A Handbook

Description

Biocultural collections cross the boundary between nature and culture, documenting the remarkable richness and diversity of human engagement with the natural world. With materials ranging from blocks of wood to DNA, and from ancient books to new websites, they play a diverse role in research and relaying valuable information about our world. Curating Biocultural Collections is the first book that both recognizes this role and provides wide-ranging advice for successfully managing these resources. Written and edited by experts from around the world, Curating Biocultural Collections  draws on real-world experiences, providing examples from ethnobiology, anthropology, agriculture, botany, zoology, and museum curation. The book places a strong emphasis on meeting the needs of collection users and encourages ethical and equitable engagement with source communities. With one hundred photographs, including objects from little-known collections, alongside case studies and a carefully chosen bibliography, this book gives valuable insight for anyone working to preserve valuable resources. Contents Section I. Introduction Chapter 1. Biocultural collections: needs, ethics, and goals / Jan Salick, Katie Konchar and Mark Nesbitt Box: Ethical standards in ethnobiology / Ethnobiology Working Group Featured Biocultural Collections Missouri Botanical Garden, Biocultural Collection / Katie Konchar and Jan Salick National Botanic Gardens of Ireland, Economic Botany Collection / Peter Wyse Jackson and Matthew Jebb National Museum of Natural History, Paris, Ethnobiology Collections / Serge Bahuchet Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Economic Botany Collection / Mark Nesbitt Smithsonian Collections / Michelle Austin-Dennehy and Adrienne Kaeppler Section II. Practical Curation of Biocultural Collections - Materials Chapter 2. Curating ethnographic specimens / Jan Timbrook Box: Curating ethnographic textiles Box: Labelling: what not to do Chapter 3. Herbarium curation of biocultural plant collections and vouchers / Jan Salick and James Solomon Box: Herbarium collections Chapter 4. Curating ethnobiological products / Michael J. Balick and Katherine Herrera Box: The Henry Hurd Rusby collection of economic botany Chapter 5. Curating paleoethnobotanical specimens and botanical reference collections / Deborah M. Pearsall Chapter 6. Curating ethnozoological and zooarchaeological collections / Terrance Martin Chapter 7. Curating DNA specimens / David M. Spooner and Holly Ruess Chapter 8. Curating seeds and other genetic resources for ethnobiology / David Dierig, Harvey Blackburn, David Ellis and Mark Nesbitt Box: United States National Plant Germplasm System Box: Storage Protocols for Seeds at National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) Box: Project MGU: The Useful Plants Project at the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) / Tiziana Ulian Chapter 9. Curating xylaria / Alex C. Wiedenhoeft Chapter 10. Living plant collections and ethnobotany in botanic gardens / Andrew Wyatt Box: Living biocultural collections Section III. Practical Curation of Biocultural Collections - Reference Materials and Metadata Chapter 11. Database standards for biocultural collections / Alyse Kuhlman and Jan Salick Chapter 12. Curating ethnographic information for biocultural collections / Serge Bahuchet Box: Biocultural collections of French Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris Box: Recovering cultural context: a basketry shield from the Amazon / Cristina Rico Liria Box: Process is important: Cuban cigars / Peter Wyse Jackson Box: Process is important: mastic / Peter Wyse Jackson Box: Draft structure for the ethnobiographical data base in the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris / Flora Pennec, Simon Juraver, Marina Quine and Serge Bahuchet Chapter 13. Cataloguing and curation of ethnobiological books and archives / Judith Warnement Box: Botanical and economic botany library collections of Harvard Box: Conservation at the Peter H. Raven Library, Missouri Botanical Garden Box: Storage and display at the Peter H. Raven Library, Missouri Botanical Garden Box: Palmer Collections at Harvard Chapter 14. Curating ethnobiographical photographs / Will McClatchey and Kim Bridges Box: A specific example of archival storage Chapter 15. Linguistic and audio-video collections in ethnobiology / K. David Harrison and Karim Sariahmed Chapter 16. Legal aspects of biocultural collections / Charles R. McManis and John S. Pelletier Section IV. Contexts and Perspectives on Biocultural Collections Chapter 17. Indigenous perceptions of biocultural collections / Jane Mt. Pleasant Chapter 18. Native Americans perspectives on biocultural collections and cultural restoration / Linda S. Bishop Chapter 19. Multicultural perspectives on biocultural collections / Neil R. Crouch, Henrik Balslev, Kamal Bawa, Robert Bye, Sangay Dema, Edelmira Linares, Pei Shengji, Armand Randrianasolo and John Rashford Box: Repatriation of the Zimbabwe Birds / Neil R. Crouch Chapter 20. Historical perspectives on Western ethnobotanical collections / Caroline Cornish and Mark Nesbitt Box: The ethnobotany collection - Botanical Garden Research Institute of Rio de Janeiro / Viviane Stern Da Fonseca-Kruel Section V. Broader Impacts of Biocultural Collections Chapter 21. Research using biocultural collections / David M. Spooner Chapter 22. Use of herbarium specimens in ethnobotany / Mark Nesbitt Chapter 23. Biocultural collections for conservation / Robbie Hart, Wayne Law and Peter Wyse Jackson Chapter 24. Using biocultural colletions for education / Catrina T. Adams and Gayle J. Fritz Box: Sacred seeds - a global network of living useful plants collections / Ashley Glenn Chapter 25. Biocultural collections: the view from an art museum / Matthew H. Robb Chapter 26. Biocultural collections: exhibition concept, planning, and design / Tom Klobe and Michael B. Thomas Subject Index