ABSTRACT
The operating context for natural history museums is changing. Many biological populations from which collections are assembled are declining catastrophically; 50 percent of the world’s species have disappeared in the last forty years (McRae et al. 2014). Habitats are declining on a similar scale through changing land use practices and steadily destabilizing climate. At the same time, the global financial crisis has left many natural history institutions with reduced scientific staff balancing research and communication with an increasingly diverse and technically sophisticated audience.
