Re: replicas & museum funding

[NEIL CLARK <NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk>]

Scott wrote:
 
> Have you asked for volunteers to help mount fiberglass casts? If I 
lived near
> a museum, I would be happy to volunteer time to do this kind of 
work, and I
> think others would, too.

I don't know what the regulations regarding the use of chemicals in 
the US is, but it would be against regulations in this country 
(Scotland) to allow anyone not employed by the museum/university to 
handle such chemicals.  Although we would welcome volunteers, they 
tend to be restricted to study of collections, or manual labour, so as to 
leave us with at least some of the fun things to do in our job.

> The revenue from the sales of casts to the public could more than 
pay for more
> preparators to mold them.

This is not so.  The market is very slow and unless some large 
expensive pieces are sold, the cost of a preparator would never be 
met unless they could attract consultancy work on their own.  At least 
this is our experience.


Neil Clark
Curator of Palaeontology
Hunterian Museum
University of Glasgow
email: NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk

Some large dinosaurs had three horns and were called
triceps, others had two horns and were called biceps.
(Geological Howlers - ed. WDI Rolfe)