Approved of by the board of our foundation in their meeting on 15 June 2013.
PREFACE
The year 2012 was quite productive. A large number of records were added. Because of our lack of adequate books, especially from the miocene of Australia, we could, however, not identify many of these shells sufficiently. Our website grew from 6.000 to 9.500 pictures. Mr. Evert Jan van der Ley kindly modernised our site.
We granted several persons permission to use our pictures in upcoming publications. The "Natuurhistorisch Museum of Rotterdam (NRM) agreed formally to act for us as an intermediate organisation for disposing of parts of our collections in a scientificaly responsable way. They act, so to speak, as our "Big Brother". About 30.000 of our records were added to the database of the "Global Biodiversity Information Facility" (GBIF). Drs. Frans Slieker is our contact person with this institution. Frans is willing to take a seat in our board. We will speak about this in our next meeting.
A shell we donated to the "Nederlandse Centrum voor Biodiversiteit" by way of the University of Amsterdam, was used by Dr. J.J. ter Poorten in his description of a new species: Fulvia nienkeae.
Our educational leaflet is available in Dutch, English and French. As in previous years the foundation is included in the city guide of Utrecht and in the so called "Kidsgids". The government of our hometown (Utrecht) investigated the possibilities for disabled persons to visit our museum. There is a link on our site where the results can be seen. In 2012 there where 6618 visitors on our site; 39089 pages were vieuwed in 10.100 visits.
"SHELLS OF THE YEAR 1212".
Contrary to earlier years we this year want to give special attention to two additions to our museum :
Dr. R.Hessel gained a much disired fossil through swapping:
Gisortia tuberculosa Duclos, 1825. This species comes from the Cuisian (Eocene) of the Paris Basin. The shell is 102 mm long.
Recently we added a very lovely shell to our collections, found in the Balcombian (Miocene) of Victoria in Australia by drs.ing.P.Hessel in 1998.
Adam Anderson from Tasmania gave us the name of this shell: Solutofusus carinatus Pritchard,1898 The shell is 32 mm long.
COLLECTIONS
On December 31st 2012, there were 61.002 records in our database containing 417.662 specimen. However, not all this material is in our own collections any more. We are donating parts of our collections to several bigger Natural History Musea. In 2009 we donated a large collection of recent shells to the University of Amsterdam. This material is now included in the collections of the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis in Leiden. We donated a collection of fossil shells of the Plio/Pleistocene of Florida to the Museum of Natural-History Rotterdam (NMR) in 2010 and recently our Pleistocene shells of Egypt were donated to them as well. Futhermore we donated this year several hundreds of drawercases to them. We keep administration of all items that were originally in our collections and thus can always be called upon to provide information.
The effective display area in our 69 showcases in Utrecht amounts to 84 mē. In Utrecht we display 3882 lots with 9114 objects.
In our department at Rhenen there are now five nice showcases available.
The storage capacity of the drawers in Utrecht is about 116 mē. For our department in Rhenen this has yet to be estimated.
Dr.R.Hessel did some collecting in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
HOUSING
The main establishment of our foundation is housed in Utrecht in the premises at the Kievitdwarsstraat 17. Anno 2012 the following accommodation is available there:
- display of fossil shells in living quarters (40 mē)
- a basement for displaying miscellaneous fossils (43 mē)
- a cellar for displaying recent shells (30 mē)
- a cellar for storage of surplus shells (7 mē)
A department of our museum is now in Rhenen, mainly for fossil shells from Miocene and older layers.
Here the storage and management area amounts to 50 mē. Please contact our secretary if you want to pay a visit there.
EQUIPMENT, FURNITURE AND MATERIALS
No alterations in 2012.
LIBRARY
A small library for naming shells and educational purposes is available. We can't lend books to the public but give assistance whenever possible. Our library now contains 703 titles.
In 2011 we donated a big part of our library to the Museum of Natural-History Rotterdam (NMR).
CONTACT
We can be reached at the following E-mail addresses:
fossil.shell.museum@xs4all.nl(main address)
sss2rhenen@gmail.com (Rhenen department)
Our website : http://www.fossilshells.nl/
also at: http://www.internationalshellmuseum.nl/
PLANS FOR 2013
Further additions to our site will be made.
We plan to do some collecting in the Netherlands and France
| Annual Report 2013 |