7871

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7871
• Author: Snyder, D. E.
• Title: Preserved Larval and Small-Fish Collections of the Upper Colorado River Basin
• USFW Year: 1996.
• USFW - Doc Type: Maintenance and Cataloging of a Valuable Historical Database - Final Report.
• Copyright Material: NO

FIGURE 3.-Map displayed after an on-line (World-Wide Web) MUSEServer
search for Ptychocheilus lucius records in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
fish collection catalog. Clicking on any of the county-based distributional dots results in a
display of selected data from catalog records associated with that county.

necessary, is much more likely if the collection is cataloged and well maintained. To
ensure collection permanency, we originally had hoped to establish a formal link with an
appropriate, preferably local or regional, museum or permanent collection such as the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service Field Station Collections (now NBS Western Biological Surveys
Collections), which is itself associated with the U.S. National Museum (Smithsonian
Institution). Such an arrangement would be particularly valuable should LFL be unable to
continue maintaining UCRB collections, especially after the RIP completes its mission.
However, a direct link with the Field Station Collections, which is now located in
Albuquerque in association with MSB, does not appear to be a viable option at this time.
Possibilities for formal links with other permanent collections or museums, including MSB,
have yet to be explored.
As an alternative, we have joined the curators and collection managers of other
natural-history collections in Colorado in establishing the ad hoc Colorado Alliance of
Biodiversity Collections (CABC). One of the primary functions of that organization will be
to help ensure the permanency and proper care of all Colorado natural-history collections,
but the means for doing such have not yet been developed, and the future of the
organization is itself uncertain.
CABC also proposes to eventually include catalog data from all Colorado collections
in a core database for easy, consolidated access by researchers and resource managers. If
CABC is successful in achieving this goal, coverage may eventually include Colorado
material maintained by out-of-state museums and collections (e.g., MSB), or CABC might
expand or merge with similar efforts in other states to become a more regional organization.
LFL might also join an independent effort to establish a southwest-regional network of fish
collections including MSB and collections at the University of Texas, Texas A & M
University, Oklahoma State University, University of Oklahoma, Arizona State University,
and institutions in northern Mexico. Through either or both of these organizations, at least

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