There are two categories of loans: in-house (e.g., Biodiversity Institute curators and graduate students, and the exhibits department of the KU Natural History Museum), and those to other (external) institutions.  External loans are sent via UPS, parcel post, or hand carried (preferably).  KU covers the cost of sending loans, and the borrower is expected to cover return costs.  If the loan is exceptionally large, a request of the borrower to cover all costs may be appropriate.  When large numbers of specimens are requested, the researcher is encouraged to visit KU to work with the specimens here.

All borrowers are informed that Mammalogy and the Biodiversity Institute should be acknowledged in all publications that result from examination of KU material.  At least one reprint (or pdf) of all published articles should be sent by the borrower to Mammalogy.

Permission must be obtained from the appropriate curator(s) for the transfer of loans, regardless of whether it is a KU or another institution's loan.  Permission must be obtained before any specimen is permanently altered (dissected, removal of a skin snippet, etc.).  Such permission will be noted on the loan invoice.

Criteria for loaning material

1) Loans are only made to institutions, not individuals.  Institutions where material is being loaned must have proper storage facilities.

2) Foreign loans are made only to countries that have reliable mail service.  When there is doubt, we will not send out material.  For countries with unreliable mail service, hand carried loans may be arranged.  The goal is not to restrict the use of specimens, but to attempt to guarantee their safety as much as possible.  Foreign loans require that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Form 3-177 be completed out and sent to officials for validation prior to mailing the loan.  Department of Agriculture and CDC permits may also be required.  Under no circumstances will a loan be sent out of the country without the proper validated form(s) attached to the outside of the loan container.

3) Relatively large requests should only be made after every effort has been made by the researcher to visit KU or obtain material themselves in the field.  If large loans must be made, they may be divided into two separate loans, i.e., half the material is sent, and the remainder is forwarded after the initial installment has been returned in good condition.

4) Types, unique, and specimens of endangered species are restricted.  No primary types will be loaned under any circumstances or ever leave Mammalogy.  In cases where there are few exemplars available in the world, and one is deposited here, it shall not be loaned.  Singletons of any taxon are not loaned.  Attempts will be made to provide a researcher with all possible data from unique specimens.  However, if a researcher needs to examine the specimen, he or she is encouraged to visit KU to work with the material here.

Proper packaging of loaned specimens being returned to KU

1) Skins. Smaller specimens, squirrel sized and smaller, should be wrapped in tissue paper, ensuring that the tail and tag are not folded or and that the specimen is not compressed.  Ensure that neither end of the skin is directly in contact with the inside of the container.  When multiple layers of specimens are sent ensure that each layer is level, i.e., place specimens of similar size in each layer.  Each layer should be separated by a layer of clean cotton tucked down so that the specimens cannot be jarred into contact with the walls of the container.  The key is to make sure that specimens do not shift during shipment.

2) Skeletons. For medium to small-sized specimens, wrap bones in tissue paper, place in a plastic bag or vial, and then place in that specimen's skeletal box.  Then place a rubber band around the specimen box.  In some cases, more than one skeletal box may be needed to package the specimen.  Larger specimens may require more packing material to prevent heavy bones from damaging one another during rough handling.

3) Fluid-preserved. Wrap specimens in cheesecloth moistened in preservative so that they do not completely dry out. Place wrapped specimen in a sealed plastic bag.  Place that bag in a second sealed bag.  It may be advisable to place several smaller plastic bags in a larger bag.  Use packing material liberally between the bags and the inside of the wooden box.

Each outgoing loan receives a unique number.  The numbers are consecutive and run continuously from year to year.  The invoice is filled out to include specimen number, sex, and prep type for each specimen loaned.  In addition, each specimen is carefully examined for any damage or missing parts.  Specimen condition for each specimen will be carefully listed in detail on the invoice.  The borrower should examine each specimen upon receipt of the loan and note, in detail, any changes in condition.  We will similarly examine the material upon its return to KU, and regard with extreme displeasure any new damage to the specimens.

Exchange policy

Exchanges should only be made between institutions.  Correspondence associated with all exchanges is maintained in the Exchanges file.  Mammalogy specimens that are exchanged are noted in both the hard copy catalog and the computer database (place pertinent comments in the Remarks field).

Organization of Collection

Currently the about 80% of the Mammalogy’s dry collections are housed in the Public Safety Building on West Campus, with the remainder held on the north half of the 7th floor of Dyche Hall.  The main flow of the collection follows the ordinal arrangement instituted by E. R. Hall, and subsequent versions published in Wilson and Reeder (2005).  Arrangement within orders is alphabetical.  Nomenclature for taxa follows Wilson and Reeder (2005).  More recent publications will likely result in changes in nomenclature and, hence, the arrangement of taxa in the collection.  Bacula, exchange, and frozen tissue collections are stored separately.  All fluid-preserved specimens are housed in a state-of-the-art fluid collection facility adjacent to Dyche Hall that opened in 1996.  There are also separate teaching and exchange collections.

Documentation of Collection

The collection is documented on hard copy ledgers that are maintained in the vault on the Museum's 7th floor.  Specimen data from the all hand-written catalogs have been captured on a computer database, which is maintained on a server as an ACCESS database.  Currently those records are being migrated to Specify 6, a modern system designed specifically for museum data.  Public access to these specimen records will be available either via the MaNIS network [http://manisnet.org/] or through the Biodiversity Institute website.

Many original field catalogs are deposited permanently in the vault on the 7th floor, and contributors to Mammalogy are encouraged to deposit their original field notes with Mammalogy.  We provide photocopies to the collectors should they request them.

Conservation of Material

Mammalogy occasionally permits destructive sampling of specimens when it is warranted.  We decide upon each request separately depending, among other things, upon (1) the nature and potential usefulness of the study, (2) rarity or historic significance of the specimen(s), and (3) the personnel conducting the study.  Requests for destructive sampling should be submitted in writing to the curators.  Tissue samples and/or hair may be extracted from study skins only with the explicit permission of the curator.  Fluid-preserved specimens may be partially or totally destroyed in mycological and other soft anatomical study.  Following considerable destruction of the soft tissue of a spirit specimen, the decision is made as to whether to convert the specimen into a skeleton.

Destructive sampling policy

Guidelines for Evaluating Requests for Destructive Sampling of Mammal Specimens at the University of Kansas

I. Procedure and criteria for approval

A. Formal request submitted to Mammalogy for review. A written proposal should be sent to Mammalogy for review and approval prior to the visit.  The proposal should state the taxa to be studied, the number of individuals requested, the exact nature and size of the sample requested, the techniques that will be used in the study, and the question(s) being addressed.  As in the approval procedure for loans, the thoroughness demanded for a particular request may vary according to our collective familiarity with researchers, their institutions, and the methods being applied.

B. Processing of requests. Requests will be evaluated through informal solicitation of colleagues' input.  Thus, various members of the curatorial and collection management staff here (or at other institutions) will be involved in the evaluation of requests.  We may also solicit opinions of colleagues at other institutions.  The goal is to seek a plurality of informed opinion for prompt response, to avoid creating another labyrinthine bureaucratic procedure.

C. Criteria and considerations for approval.

1. Purpose and merit of study.
2. Demonstrated competence of researchers with proposed methods and availability of institutional resources to carry out stated research.
3. Appropriateness of the technique applied and the taxa sampled to the question(s) posed.
4. Availability of material from other sources. Can equivalent material be collected from the field specifically for the project in question? Is it available from tissue collections or from zoos? Rarity of the taxon in the wild and/or in collections.
5. Potential for compromising the future utility of specimens for other kinds of systematic investigation.

II. Procedures to be followed once approval is granted

A. Removal of tissue sample.

1. As a rule, investigator(s) will be required to remove samples from specimens here in the Museum, rather than on borrowed specimens.
2. Operation will be monitored by a staff member, at least initially.  Investigator(s) must perform the excision in such a way as to avoid contamination of the specimen.
3. As a rule, only one sample may be removed per specimen.
4. Types will remain inviolate.

B. Documentation.

1. Investigator(s) will be required to provide a listing of KU catalog numbers for specimens from which samples have been removed.  This should include notation of location and type of the sample removed from each specimen.  Our curatorial staff will record this information on the specimen tags and/or computer database, making it available for future researchers.
2. Reprints of all publications or .pdfs generated as a result of investigations utilizing KU specimens should be sent to Mammalogy.