Leonardo-Daubenton

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD BALANCE BETWEEN COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT AND DIGITISATION Garin Cael1, Patricia Mergen1, Rob Huxley² & Simon Owens³ 1Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium ; 2 Natural History Museum, London, UK ; 3 Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew Currently, many institutions struggle to obtain funding for the physical care of collections, whereas funding for digitisation is easier to obtain. To ensure that one doesn’t run the risk of having collections deteriorating fast, while the money flows towards the ever-changing and rapidly improving scene of digitisation, one must maintain a good balance. This will ensure that the content, as well as the databases are of high standard. Here are two projects which aim to uphold the collections side of the balance. © Garin Cael THE CONDITION OF MOST EUROPEAN COLLECTIONS OVER TIME! SYNTHESYS-NA2 Leonardo-Daubenton The Daubenton Project is an initiative of CETAF to enable the mobility of collection managers of scientific collections in Europe. Aim is to exchange the unique expertise existing in this very specialized domain of competences in order to avoid the loss of these very valuable skills after the retirement of the local specialists, to enable lifelong learning programs for the staff and to train the new generations. As the host institution can incorporate the visiting trainee into their working force without needing to pay their salary, this greatly benefits both trainee and host institution. Participating host institutions are now the Natural History Museums in London, Paris, Vienna, Stockholm, Brussels, Tervuren, Florence, Leiden, Montpellier and Meise; whereas collection managers and technicians from the French and Belgian institutions are eligible for applying. • SYNTHESYS 2 (Synthesis of Systematic Resources 2) is a European Union-funded Integrated Infrastructure Initiative grant, and was split into two parts: Access and Networking Activities. • In the first SYNTHESYS project, NAC • aimed to raise the standards of collections management throughout Europe, by: • Assessment of collections in European institutions • The development of a set of collections management benchmarks • providing advanced training courses • providing training material online • NAC now continues in SYNTHESYS–NA2, which will continue to provide the same services, except that instead of assessments, a self assessment tool will be created and made available. SYNTHESYS-NAC training course in Stockholm, June 2006 Examples of bird specimens from the “La Specola”, Florence, Italy. Famous skeletal and wax model collections (Photos: P. Mergen) More Information at : www.synthesys.info More Information at : www.aef-europe.be