Natural Sciences Collections Association

The group has now held four meetings, the last in November 1996 at the National Museum and Gallery in Cardiff. The next meeting is planned for Edinburgh, in September 1997. Activities continue to focus on topics identified at the group's early meetings, including: storage systems, curatorial supplies, pest control, charging for services and facilities, legislation, acquisition and disposal policies, destructive sampling, curation of survey and voucher material, and databases and checklists of the British fauna. There have been successes in all these areas in agreeing and moving towards common objectives and practices. Data on current curatorial and research projects is also being gathered and the group is working on input to the National Strategy which the Forum is producing.

Communications with other relevant groups, for example, the Royal Entomological Society's British Insect Fauna Committee, are well established and contact with managers of insect collections in the UK continues through reports in The Biology Curator and many personal contacts.