Standards for management of the recent mammal and bird collections at Texas Tech University
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Abstract
Museums serve an important function in society. They have existed in one form or another since the Classical Age. In the modem sense a museum's primary function is education. This is accomplished through collection-based research and public exhibitions. A society that does not support museums finds itself with weakened historic, artistic, and scientific foundations.
Biological, or systematics, collections serve as the foundation for much scientific research (Baker, 1994; Baker et al, 1998; Parker et al., 1998; WUson, 1992; Yates, 1987). Examples of research areas that rely on systematics collections include biodiversity, taxonomy, systematics, phylogenetics, morphometries, and ecology. Other disciplines that benefit from collections of specimens include genetic and molecular research, toxicology, biological informatics, epidemiology, and resource conservation. Systematics collections can be considered in the same light as research libraries. The specimens contain a wealth of information that is available to users of the collection. Scientists, using a variety of methods, can "read" this information from the specimens.