Best Practices for Managing Federal Museum Collections

Section B. - Provide Good Customer Service

B-8 Know which objects in your Federal museum collections have been featured in publications

By knowing which objects of your collection have been featured in publication, you can efficiently focus research efforts on artifacts and specimens that have not yet been thoroughly investigated and avoid duplicate efforts. Tracking use of collections in publications may also increase the efficiency of current projects involving similar items. For example, knowing the history of use may aid in understanding archaeological materials from the same geographic area or the same time period.

Examples
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Research, Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory
http://nt.ars-grin.gov/sbmlweb/research/

National Park Service (NPS)
"Estimation of green herbaceous phytomass from Landsat MSS data in Yellowstone National Park"
http://jrm.library.arizona.edu/data/1993/462/13merr.pdf

Museum Handbook, Part III, Museum Collections Use, Chapter 3, Publications
http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/publications/MHIII/mh3ch3.pdf