If You Feel Like Getting Depressed......

.... try reading an opinion piece by Michael Mares in the latest edition of BioScience, which is entitled "Natural Science Collections: America's Irreplaceable Resource." Mares, who is the director of the Sam Nobel Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and a former president of the Natural Science Collections Alliance, provides a series of often horrific examples of collections that are at risk because of a lack of funding. While acknowledging the important roles that funding agencies like NSF and IMLS current play in supporting natural science collections, he issues a clarion call for massive investment in collections at both a state and federal level. In essence, he's arguing that they are too important to be allowed to fail.... an argument that is all too familiar these days.