Te Papa restructure risks loss

Te Papa restructure risks loss of irreplaceable science expertise - critics Nikki Macdonald 05:00, Jan 26 2019 Facebook Twitter Google + Email Comments97 Critics fear Te Papa's latest restructure risks a loss of crucial experience and the further erosion of collection care capacity. 

STUFF Nikki Macdonald 05:00, Jan 26 2019

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Critics fear Te Papa's latest restructure risks a loss of crucial experience and the further erosion of collection care capacity. It's the smallest of sentences, but it hit Anton van Helden like a tonne of bricks. The second of three Te Papa restructure documents highlighted priority areas for the new structure: "key gaps are seaweeds, marine mammals, spiders". Van Helden used to be that marine mammal guy. The guy who identified stranded whales. The guy who responded when a beach-walker wanted to know if they'd found the motherlode of sperm whale vomit, better known as ambergris. The guy who looked after the precious whale bones that were last year found covered in bacteria. But he got the boot in the national museum's 2013 restructure. "it still hurts me every time I think about it. Because I love that collection. That is what I am about." 

 READ MORE: * What should the story of NZ in 2.5 million objects look like? * Te Papa lacking enough internal staff to look after entire collection, experts say * Te Papa's international reputation in good practice is richly deserved * Scientists urge Te Papa to invest in collections research rather than strip them of staff Now, another restructure threatens another tranche of collection management expertise and passion, which critics say is both crucial and irreplaceable. It's also rekindled concerns about the country's commitment to its nationally significant collections, which provide the key to understanding New Zealand's past, present and future. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with Stuff Anton van Helden was Te Papa's marine mammals collection manager until 2013, when he was made redundant. News the museum now acknowledges marine mammals as a key gap in their knowledge hit him "like a tonne of bricks". (File photo) CRAIG SIMCOX Anton van Helden was Te Papa's marine mammals collection manager until 2013, when he was made redundant. News the museum now acknowledges marine mammals as a key gap in their knowledge hit him "like a tonne of bricks". (File photo) THE POWER OF THE OBJECT To understand why Te Papa's collections matter, you have to understand their purpose. New technology is constantly unlocking new possibilities for dusty flakes of history to reveal how the world is changing. Nic Rawlence, an Otago University lecturer in ancient DNA, spent three weeks in museum basements in Canterbury, Te Papa and Otago measuring old bones, to understand the shape of the giant swan that once roamed New Zealand. Te Papa's collections are a treasure trove of New Zealand's archaeological and natural history, he says. "Photos can help, but they can't replace holding something ...There are fossils in Te Papa that I work with going back 60-70,000 years. I would not be able to do the research that I do and answer the questions that matter to New Zealanders without Te Papa's collections. And that's looking at what New Zealand was like when humans arrived, the impacts of climate change in humans. How can we learn from it? How do we take that info on how New Zealand has changed to conserve what we've got left and possibly turn back the clock?" Curious City - Te Papa Natural History archive SharePlay Video MONIQUE FORD / FAIRFAX NZ There's more to Te Papa than exhibitions and historical items on display. At its Tory St facility is stored birds and bones, fish, and more to use for scientific research and testing. Mike Rudge looked after the national collections from 1994 to 1998. He remembers a visitor asking if a 1.4-metre, 1200kg fossil of an ancient ocean ammonite was a concrete replica. "When I said 'no' they were thunderstruck – that a creature like that could be moving around in the ancient seas. I felt quite moved by that, because that's the power of the genuine object." He's all for digitisation and augmented reality, which could allow people to virtually swim with an ammonite. But there's no replacing the real deal. "I think it's a huge mistake for anybody to say we don't need the real object. It's like saying we've got all these David Attenborough films, we don't need lions any more ... Let's by all means augment, but not trash on the way through." Te Papa's head of collections, Dale Bailey, doesn't disagree. He rates the importance of Te Papa's physical collections, including its 1.4 million natural history specimens, a 10 out of 10. "We are not a museum without them. They are at the very core of what we do." Scientists Mike Rudge, left, and Lionel Carter say the restructure further dilutes an already depleted science collection management team. ROSS GIBLIN/ STUFF Scientists Mike Rudge, left, and Lionel Carter say the restructure further dilutes an already depleted science collection management team. THE DETAILS The disquiet started in July 2018, when Te Papa threatened up to 25 job losses across the organisation. Plans to cut from 16 to 10 the number of natural history and humanities collections managers – the guardians of our national treasures – provoked outrage among the science community. Collections staff had already been slashed by 42 per cent in the 2013 restructure that ousted van Helden. Any further cuts would jeopardise Te Papa's ability to care for irreplaceable gems, critics said. Just look at those mouldy whale bones. The process was halted while an international panel reviewed the museum's set-up, although it was later revealed they were not told of the planned staff cuts. The review panel found the museum was documenting and managing its collections well and praised its world-leading fish collection and facilities. However, the panel also highlighted the need to reduce the digitisation backlog, to make the collections more accessible. Panel member Tim White, of Yale University's Peabody Museum, told Stuff Te Papa's collection management staff were "thin". "For an institution of that size, and for the breadth of collections that they have, and being a national museum, it seems like they are lacking staffing." The jobs of Te Papa collections managers Tom Schultz (left) and Andrew Stewart (centre) have been disestablished in Te Papa's latest restructure. (File photo) MAARTEN HOLL The jobs of Te Papa collections managers Tom Schultz (left) and Andrew Stewart (centre) have been disestablished in Te Papa's latest restructure. (File photo) Nonetheless, the restructure continued, in a watered-down state. The third and final restructure document, released in December 2018, replaced the five science collection managers with two collection managers, two assistant curators and a technician. One collection manager would cover all animals and insects and the other would cover all plants – a generalisation that a source described as "further dumbing down". There are also three new lead curator jobs, which the staff made redundant get first bite at (although it's not clear whether they have the qualifications to be considered). Overall, the science team loses one position, with the axing of the bicultural science researcher. Further reductions are possible, as the restructure documents say if existing curators are promoted to lead curators their curator jobs may not be replaced. However, Te Papa says it does not plan to reduce numbers further. There's debate about exactly how much collections care falls to collection managers, and how much is done by curators. Van Helden says collection managers can be the difference between the unmarked crate in Raiders of the Lost Ark disappearing into the storehouse never to be rediscovered, and every specimen being in the right place with the right information. They do everything from splitting a marine mammal into its component parts and safely storing and cataloguing the skeleton, the wet parts, the teeth; to arranging specimen loans, to checking for pests and leaks. He worries increasing generalisation could jeopardise collection care. "How you prepare and look after mollusc shells is completely different to how you would look after bird skins or whale skeletons ...The more you understand a group, the easier it is to manage them." Weird fish examined SharePlay Video MAARTEN HOLL/FAIRFAX NZ Te Papa fish collection manager Andrew Stewart talks about the process of examining and identifying the rare frogfish. The assistant curator job also involves up to 40 per cent research, reducing the time available for collection care. The technician's priority would be to help cut the backlog of 700,000 specimens (about 50 per cent of the natural history collection) still not digitised for online access. A Te Papa source, who says morale is so low that staff are randomly swearing in corridors, says the restructure is "nonsensical". "We desperately need more staff, and if we can't do that because you don't have the money to do so, you'd be getting rid of more curators and have more collection managers." Nic Rawlence calls the restructure "a great leap backwards". While more curators is good, it should not come at the expense of collection management. Another senior scientist, who would not be named because of links with Te Papa, says the museum has been historically underfunded. "Te Papa has had it hard, but the decisions they've been making - and the way they've been making them - are appalling...They're not recognising the value of collection management as a career stream. No matter how they dress it up and paper it up, the numbers don't add up. They're reducing capacity." Molluscs expert Bruce Marshall's collection manager job has been disestablished. He has been collecting, naming and looking after snail specimens since 1967. GRAHAM SPENCE/TE PAPA Molluscs expert Bruce Marshall's collection manager job has been disestablished. He has been collecting, naming and looking after snail specimens since 1967. Mike Rudge believes Te Papa has been seduced by the "front-of-house glamour" of exhibitions and is neglecting its collections. "If you had reduced the complement of people that was there in my time to considerably less than 50 per cent, a lot of things are not being done." Rudge asked the auditor-general to investigate the impact of the 2013 staff cuts, alleging the museum was failing in its statutory obligations to safeguard its collections. However, the appeal was rejected, after the office found no evidence Te Papa was breaching the law. MORE FROM NIKKI MACDONALD • SENIOR FEATURE WRITER nikki.macdonald@stuff.co.nz Te Papa's head of collections, Dale Bailey, defends Te Papa's collections care. He can't comment on the 2013 staff cuts – or the fact they're now looking for marine mammal expertise, after axing van Helden – as those decisions pre-dated him. However, he does not accept that staff cuts mean the collections are receiving less care. He says the point of this reorganisation is to keep the collections in the very best of care and maximise their usefulness for both Te Papa and New Zealand. If Te Papa were a hospital, curators would be doctors and collections managers would be nurses, he says. "Access is driven through insight into the collection and relationships with researchers, and that's largely led by curators." Bailey resigned on Tuesday and will return to Auckland at the end of March, after the restructure's completion. He has not decided if he will remain in the museum sector. Spider expert Phil Sirvid's job has been disestablished, but early restructure documents say the museum needs spider expertise. (File photo) DAVID WHITE/STUFF Spider expert Phil Sirvid's job has been disestablished, but early restructure documents say the museum needs spider expertise. (File photo) THE PEOPLE It's as much about the people as the positions. The five disestablished collection managers represent decades of irreplaceable expertise. Mollusc expert Bruce Marshall has been researching and collecting since 1967. He's so renowned in his field he's had 23 species named after him. He has also published more than 120 scientific papers and described and named 451 new species – the highest in Te Papa's history. Andrew Stewart has been the fish collection manager since 1982 and co-authored the definitive four-volume tome on New Zealand fish. Antony Kusabs has looked after the botany collection since 2010 and previously worked for Landcare Research and the Department of Conservation. Tom Schultz toured with Te Papa's whale exhibition and entomology collection manager Phil Sirvid is a spider expert. Te Papa molluscs expert Bruce Marshall is so renowned in his field he has 23 species and 6 genera named after him, including the Bruceiella laevigata. TE PAPA Te Papa molluscs expert Bruce Marshall is so renowned in his field he has 23 species and 6 genera named after him, including the Bruceiella laevigata. Given only two collection manager positions remain, three of those disestablished would have to take a pay cut to technician or assistant curator, or leapfrog existing curators into a lead curator job. Sources fear for Marshall and Stewart, as their expertise doesn't fit the priority areas stated in the second restructure proposal. "What you're getting rid of is something you can't replace," Rudge says. "You might get some bright young chap or chapess with a masters or PhD but they don't have this mysterious thing called experience – knowing the context. If you showed Andrew a fish he might be able to say that's a such and such, where did you catch it? You say Kāpiti and he says, no you didn't, it doesn't come any further than the Poor Knights Islands. That's taxonomic knowledge and experience. So he can say – wow, now we're talking climate change." Bailey could not comment on who would survive the restructure, but was confident the museum would "retain the skills we need to go forward". The collection managers' fate will be decided in the coming weeks. International review panel member Tim White, who is director of collections and research at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, sums up the importance of collections and their keepers: "It's important to have them, it's important to take care of them, and there's no substitute for having well-informed, educated staff." Fish expert Andrew Stewart is one of the collections managers whose job has been distestablished as part of Te Papa's latest restructure. (File photo) MONIQUE FORD / FAIRFAX NZ Fish expert Andrew Stewart is one of the collections managers whose job has been distestablished as part of Te Papa's latest restructure. (File photo) THE BIG PICTURE Experts such as Bruce Marshall are among a small and ageing group with expertise in the crucial but unsexy field of taxonomy – identifying, describing and naming New Zealand's flora and fauna, which underpins everything from identifying biosecurity pests to understanding relationships between different organisms. A Royal Society review in 2015 found taxonomists were themselves an endangered species, and that expertise took 10-15 years to build up. "The reduction in national taxonomic expertise means that the quality of science and the delivery of timely information and services is placed at risk." The review also found New Zealand's 29 collections of national significance – held in museums, crown research institutes and universities nationwide – were underfunded and needed better national co-ordination. Only about half New Zealand's organisms have been identified and, of the 12 million specimens in the national collections, only one-fifth had been entered into electronic databases. Andrew Stewart (left) and Tom Trnski (now head of natural science at the Auckland War Memorial Museum) during a 2014 sunfish dissection at Te Papa's Tory St complex. (File photo) CRAIG SIMCOX Andrew Stewart (left) and Tom Trnski (now head of natural science at the Auckland War Memorial Museum) during a 2014 sunfish dissection at Te Papa's Tory St complex. (File photo) Auckland War Memorial Museum's head of natural sciences, Tom Trnski​, says most museums speak the rhetoric of the value of their collections, but don't walk the talk. His museum has used depreciation funding to employ 15 cataloguers on a four-year project to reduce its digitisation backlog. In natural sciences, that will reduce the backlog from 40 to 30 per cent. However, national collections are vulnerable to the changing priorities of the individual institutions holding them, Trnski says. "We all suffer the same problems, in that resources and priorities shift regularly. And then it's very hard to maintain momentum to build the benefits of these millions of objects in collections across New Zealand." Trnski, who co-wrote the Royal Society report, calls for a funded national body to co-ordinate national collections, as has been set up in Australia. "That's the bit we're lacking at the moment - a national agency that can spruik the importance of our collections to the broader community." Auckland War Memorial Museum's digitisation backlog effort has revealed forgotten gems, such as this 1818 plant specimen from Australia. AUCKLAND WAR MEMORIAL MUSEUM Auckland War Memorial Museum's digitisation backlog effort has revealed forgotten gems, such as this 1818 plant specimen from Australia. ​The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is currently reviewing all national collections and planned to report back to the minister by October 2018. A spokesman says consultation took longer than expected and any decisions will now be implemented later in 2019. Retired Landcare Research scientist David Penman has spent decades advocating for better co-ordination of our national treasures, and chaired the global mega-database of all known creatures. The erosion of New Zealand's taxonomic expertise seems to be death by 1000 cuts, he says. While some investment in 2016 staved off the urgent issue of collections facing shutdown, there is little evidence of any strategic view of how all the pieces fit together. No-one is interested in long-term investment, until there's some emergency, he says. "When we did budget analyses, you could project out that in 5-10 years' time we will have no research going on. We'll be merely warehousing our historical collections, with very little new stuff going on. The trouble is something like PSA comes along, or kauri dieback ... Ooh, urgency, who can identify it? Well, actually, the last people were laid off three years ago."