Invertebrate collections

Susan Davis made this Freedom of Information request to Bristol City Council

The request was partially successful.

From: Susan Davis

12 January 2010

Dear Bristol City Council,

It has recently been reported in the media that Bristol City
Council's museum service is considering putting its invertebrate
collections into deep storage.

Please could you release copies of all information you hold
relating to a) the content of these collections, b) the reasons why
deep storage is being considered, c) discussions which have taken
place about the proposal, and d) alternative measures which have
been discussed.

Please include emails, other correspondence, minutes of meetings
and any other documents which relate to this subject.

Yours faithfully,

Susan Davis

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From: Freedom of Information
Bristol City Council

12 January 2010

Thank you for your request for Information made under the Freedom of Information Act.

Your request will now be dealt with and a response will be sent within 20 working days, starting from the next working day after your request is received.

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From: Susan Davis

10 February 2010

Dear Bristol City Council,

Could you please let me have an update on the progress of my
information request. I believe I should have received a reply by
today. Could you let me know the reason for the delay in replying,
and a projected revised date by which you expect to be able to
respond?

Many thanks,

Susan Davis

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From: Susan Davis

16 February 2010

Dear Bristol City Council,

Could you please let me have an update on the progress of my
information request. I believe I should have received a reply by 9
February, so you are now a week late. Could you let me know the
reason for the delay in replying, and a projected revised date by
which you expect to be able to respond?

Many thanks,

Susan Davis

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From: Susan Davis

20 February 2010

Dear Bristol City Council,

I still have not received a reply to my FoI request on this
subject. A reply should have been received by 9 February, I
believe. Please could you reply and give me an explanation for the
delay, and a projected date by which you will be able to reply.

If I have not heard from you by Tuesday 23 February, I will then
make a request for an internal review of the handling of this
request.

Yours faithfully,

Susan Davis

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From: Steve Knight
Bristol City Council

22 February 2010

Dear Susan Davis

Thank you for your recent freedom of information request about our
invertebrate collections, and i apologise for the slight delay in
responding.

I have received the following information from the Museums, Galleries
and Archives Team:

Currently there are no detailed plans to change the storage of the
collections. They are held in store at the City Museum and Art Gallery
as part of our natural history collections.

There has been some discussion in as part of the Museums Galleries and
Archives Select Committee, which has explored the benefit of a purpose
built and accessible store for all our collections including natural
history material. These discussions have been held in public meetings
and the information is already available on the Bristol City Council
website.
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Le...

We have continued to make the collections accessible through a
programme of events and activities. Recent examples of this kind of work
have included attendance at a meeting of the British Entomological &
Natural History Society held on Sunday 7th February on the subject of
'Studying moths' at which our curators showed some of our collections.
We have also just used the collections in the 'Find your Talent' project
with St Katherine's School, Pill, the NT at Tyntesfield and the N. Som
Museums Service. Pupils were shown examples of insect pest specimens
held in the collections and a preserved example of the damage that
insect pests do to insect museum collections. The collections have been
used and referred to in our recent publication on Moths.

A summary of the entomological collections can be provided if this
would help.

This response should answer your request in full, however if you are
not satisfied with this response or wish to lodge an appeal against any
exemptions that may have been applied, you can do so by writing to the
Data Protection Officer at Bristol City Council Legal Services, The
Council House, College Green, Bristol, BS99 7PH or [Bristol City Council request email] .
Details of the complaints procedure can be found at
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/complaints .

If, after you have exhausted the council’s complaints procedure, you
are still not satisfied with the response you have received you have the
right to complain to the Information Commissioner, details of your right
to complain can be found at http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx

Copyright notice
The provision of information by Bristol City Council under this scheme
does not imply a right to reproduce or commercially exploit such
information without the Council's express prior written permission.
Reproduction or commercial exploitation of materials supplied under
this scheme without the express permission of Bristol City Council may
be an infringement of copyright.
The Council is unable to grant permission to reproduce or re-use any
material accessed through this scheme that is the property of third
parties. Permission to reproduce or re-use such material must be
obtained from the copyright holders.

Yours Sincerely
Steve Knight
Business Services Group

______________________________________________________________________
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From: Susan Davis

22 February 2010

Dear Steve Knight,

Thank you for your reply. I don't think that the reply you've
forwarded from the Museums etc. team really addresses the request.
Their reply appears to imply that I am asking for information about
detailed plans for the rehousing of the collections - stating
"Currently there are no detailed plans to change the storage of the
collections". However, I didn't really ask about plans, detailed or
otherwise (although if there were any I would naturally expect
these to form part of the response). I am aware that the idea of
moving the collections into deep storage hasn't reached the stage
of a firm proposal yet (and may not do so at all). However, unless
the press reports I referred to in my request are incorrect, the
City Council is currently (or has recently been) considering the
idea. To clarify my request, what I am interested in is any
recorded information held by the City Council relating to the idea
under consideration.

If this subject has not been discussed at all by the City Council
and the press reports I referred to in my request are incorrect, I
would be grateful if you could confirm that this is the case.
Likewise, if discussions have been held, but no recorded
information is held about those discussions (for example, if the
meetings at which the subject has been discussed were not been
minuted), please confirm that this is the case instead.

Please note that my request asked for copies of any emails in which
the idea has been discussed. I would expect that an electronic
search, using appropriate search terms (e.g. collections, storage,
insect) has been performed and that the resulting emails have been
examined to determine that there are none of relevance. Can you
confirm that this happened? For clarification, I am referring both
to emails internally within the City Council, and also any emails
sent externally.

Part a) of my request asks for a copy of all the information held
relating to the content of the invertebrate collections. The
Museums etc. team's response does not appear to have addressed this
aspect of the request, and only mentions a "summary". The city
council holds a detailed computerised catalogue of the specimens
that make up the collections, including information such as date &
locality of collection, and identification of the specimen. I would
expect this to be released in response to part a) of my request
unless this information is exempt. If you are withholding this,
please can you state which FoI Act exemption you are using.

I look forward to your further response.

Yours sincerely,

Susan Davis

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From: Steve Knight
Bristol City Council

26 February 2010

Attachment entomology summary 1.DOC.doc
120K Download View as HTML

Attachment entomology print out 1.xls
572K Download View as HTML

Dear Susan Davis,

Following you request i have again contacted the Collections Manager
and can confirm that there has been no discussion about deep storage of
the insect collection and for this reason i am unable to communicate
this information to you.

In terms of details of the collection, there is no single computerised
database. Only approximately 5% of the collection is recorded in digital
format, and i have attached this as a spreadsheet and the entomology
summary. It is estimated that it would take in excess of the Appropriate
limit (18 hours of officer time) for the rest of the collection to be
provided digitally or otherwise, therefore in part your request is being
refused in accordance with Regulation 5(2)(b) of the Freedom of
Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations
2004 (Statutory Instrument No 3244). The collections manager has
however, advised that he would be happy to show you the paper records if
this would be of interest. Please let me know if you wish to do this and
i will ask them to arrange.

This response should answer your request in full, however if you are
not satisfied with this response or wish to lodge an appeal against any
exemptions that may have been applied, you can do so by writing to the
Data Protection Officer at Bristol City Council Legal Services, The
Council House, College Green, Bristol, BS99 7PH or [Bristol City Council request email] .
Details of the complaints procedure can be found at
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/complaints .

If, after you have exhausted the council’s complaints procedure, you
are still not satisfied with the response you have received you have the
right to complain to the Information Commissioner, details of your right
to complain can be found at http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx

Copyright notice
The provision of information by Bristol City Council under this scheme
does not imply a right to reproduce or commercially exploit such
information without the Council's express prior written permission.
Reproduction or commercial exploitation of materials supplied under
this scheme without the express permission of Bristol City Council may
be an infringement of copyright.
The Council is unable to grant permission to reproduce or re-use any
material accessed through this scheme that is the property of third
parties. Permission to reproduce or re-use such material must be
obtained from the copyright

Yours Sincerely
Steve Knight

______________________________________________________________________
'Do it online' with our growing range of online services - http://www.bristol.gov.uk/services

Sign-up for our email bulletin giving news, have-your-say and event information at: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/newsdirect

View webcasts of Council meetings at http://www.bristol.gov.uk/webcast

Find out about the council's Cycling City project by visiting http://www.betterbybike.info/cycling-cit...

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