Auxiliary collections issues

[christian thompson]

Years ago I gave a talk at our Entomological Collections Network meeting =
on what I then called PARA Collection because PC seems useful acrynonym, =
etc.

The general answer to your question at least in entomology is that the =
regular curator who is responsible for the main collections is also =
responsible for the PARA collections, which are largely literature files =
(reprints), but can also include Field Notebooks, correspondence files =
(however, some of these eventually are turned over to Archives), card =
files (these are disappearing as computer databases replacing their =
usefulness, etc.), etc.

In my talk I made the important distinction between REPRINT as opposed to =
the actual article published in the journal, etc.  Sometimes these =
reprints pre-date the publication of the journal article, hence, have =
great nomenclatural value (at least in Zoology). Also, authors especially =
in the past sometimes would make corrections in their reprints. Hence, =
again the reprint is of greater value than the journal article. And in a =
few rare cases, authors distributed "reprints" of articles which NEVER =
were published.=20

So, in short, while curators already have too much to do, etc., reprint =
files (=3DPara Collections) are an important resource which should not be =
automatically discarded simply because the "article" also in the journal =
in the library, etc.

Cheers

F. Christian Thompson
Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D. C. 20560
(202) 382-1800 voice
(202) 786-9422 FAX
cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov