After my post about bird periodicals, I thought to offer information
about ornithological holdings in Ohio museums. You can find an old but
useful article in the Auk 90(1):160-161, which treats sixteen Museum
ornithological holdings in Ohio. It offers brief descriptions of large
museum collections of skins, skeletons, mounts, egg sets, and nests.
This article is from 1973, and of course the numbers of specimens have
increased somewhat since that time. This brief article deals with the
Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Cincinnati Museum of Natural
History, the Dayton Museum of Natural History, the Ohio State Museum,
the University of Cincinnati, Miami University Department of Zoology,
the Toledo Museum of Health and Natural History, and nine smaller
collections in Ohio.
        Not all of the museums offer displays of bird specimens, but they are
willing to assist serious citizens who ask serious questions about items
in their collections. Unfortunately, few of them even offer
complete lists online of their holdings (the OSU collection is an
exception, with complete data on Vertnet), but they will supply
information to serious inquiries. It seems likely that the important
collections will eventually be inventoried and made available online,
although I must say some of these efforts have gone along for quite a
while.
        Museum specimens, beyond public showings, are for serious
inquiries. One layer of seriousness is sharing data of specimens for
interested folks in Ohio; important collections should be
carefully inventoried and made public on the internet, and that in
important instances serious members of the public will be allowed to
examine specimens and records.
        I can't imagine museum curators will always be willing to have members
of the public to handle their specimens, but they surely must find it
useful at last to make their holdings known to the public.


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