Natural Sciences Collections Association

The Insect Collection Managers Group [ICMG] consists of exactly that, the specialist collections managers of the major insect collections in Britain and Ireland.

All insect collection-holding institutions in Britain and Ireland with a dedicated entomology post should be represented on this group. In addition, the curator of the British Entomological & Natural History Society is a member, partly to link to the amateur collector community, and the Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA) is represented by an entomologist member of its committee, to provide a link to other museums with insect collections and to the curators responsible for them. It was recently decided that all active museum entomologists who are responsible for significant insect collections among a wider range of curatorial duties would be considered eligible to join the group. Anyone interested should contact Mike Wilson or Geoff Hancock at the email address below.

The aims of the ICMG are:

• To enable the managers of the largest insect collections in Britain and Ireland to meet each other, discuss common problems, potential ways to resolve these and identify areas which might benefit from standardisation
• To set and promulgate standards of curation and documentation
• To undertake projects in these areas
• To promote cooperation between all holders of insect collections
• To promote and support outreach and training

Recent discussion has covered latest developments in :

• Integrated Pest Management.
• egislation on collecting, import & export permits and to share experiences in respect to the tightening up of accession / acquisition of both old and new material by Biodiversity conventions and museum accreditation standards.
• Major acquisitions, loans, losses and thefts within their collections.
• The status and importance of voucher specimens and the distribution of specimens of recently introduced or threatening alien species between and to core museums to assist in monitoring and detection.
• Latest identification keys and checklists.
• Web-based initiatives,

Surveys of holdings of British insects / collections spreadsheets, showing the size of holdings and where the largest and / or most important collections are located. This will be particularly useful for ‘less popular’ groups. The spreadsheet will be made widely available with the aim of gathering information on all insect collections.

Supplies & Suppliers

The Group identifies good quality suppliers and the performance standards discussed for cabinets, drawers, unit trays, Plastazote, collecting equipment, chemicals, pins, papers, ink, glues, environmental monitoring equipment etc. An annotated list of suppliers is held by Jeanne Robinson at Glasgow.

Training

Training days on basics of insect collection management for generalist natural history curators and for non-museum entomologists are to be planned and will be advertised through NatSCA, BENHS, RES and British Ecological Society soon.

The group generally meets once a year and each member institution takes it in turn to act as host. The 2008 meeting of ICMG was held at The Natural History Museum, London and 2009 will be held at the National Museums & Galleries of Wales, Cardiff.

The present chair of the group is Mike Wilson (mike.wilson@nmgw.ac.uk) and the secretary is Geoff Hancock (g.hancock@museum.gla.ac.uk).

The collections and relevant organisations represented are:

1. Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton (Gerald Legg, gerald.legg@brighton-hove.gov.uk)
2. Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery (Ray Barnet ray.barnet@bristol.gov.uk)
3. British Entomological & Natural History Society (Peter Chandler, chandgnats@aol.com)
4. Central Science Laboratory, York (Chris Malumphy, c.malumphy@csl.gov.uk; Sharon Reid, s.reid@csl.gov.uk)
5. Hope Entomological Collections, Oxford University Museum (Darren Mann, darren.mann@oum.ox.ac.uk)
6. Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow (Geoff Hancock [Secretary], g.hancock@museum.gla.ac.uk)
7. Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow (Jeanne Robinson, jeanne.robinson@csglasgow.org.uk)
8. Manchester Museum (Dmitri Logunov, dmitri.v.logunov@manchester.ac.uk)
9. National Museum of Ireland, Dublin (Jim O’Connor, maryaoc@hotmail.com)
10. National Museums & Galleries of Wales, Cardiff (Mike Wilson [Chair], mike.wilson@nmgw.ac.uk)
11. National Museums of Northern Ireland, Holywood (Brian Nelson, brian.nelson@magni.org.uk)
12. National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh (Graham Rotheray, g.rotheray@nms.ac.uk)
13. Natural History Museum, London (Mike Fitton, m.fitton@nhm.ac.uk; Howard Mendel, h.mendel@nhm.ac.uk)
14. Natural Sciences Collections Association, (Paul Brown, p.brown@nhm.ac.uk)
15. Norfolk Museums & Archaeological Service, Norwich (Tony Irwin tony.irwin@norfolk.gov.uk)
16. Ulster Museum, Belfast (Robert Nash, robert.nash@magni.org.uk)
17. University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge (William Foster wafl@cus.cam.ac.uk; Russell Stebbings, rcs27@cam.ac.uk)
18. World Museum Liverpool (Steve Judd, steve.judd@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk; Guy Knight, guy.knight@)liverpoolmuseums.org.uk)