title: Italian natural history museums on the verge of collapse?
abstract: The Italian natural history museums are facing a critical situation, due to the progressive loss of scientific relevance, decreasing economic investments, and scarcity of personnel. This is extremely alarming, especially for ensuring the long-term preservation of the precious collections they host. Moreover, a commitment in fieldwork to increase scientific collections and concurrent taxonomic research are rarely considered priorities, while most of the activities are addressed to public events with political payoffs, such as exhibits, didactic meetings, expositions, and talks. This is possibly due to the absence of a national museum that would have better steered research activities and overall concepts for collection management. We here propose that Italian natural history museums collaborate to instate a "metamuseum", by establishing a reciprocal interaction network aimed at sharing budgetary and technical resources, which would assure better coordination of common long-term goals and scientific activities.
authors.affiliation: Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali, Via G. Giolitti, 36, I-1023 Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Andreone
authors.affiliation: Museo di Storia Naturale, Sezione Zoologica "La Specola", Via Romana, 17, I-50125, Firenze, Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bartolozzi
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Via San Francesco di Sales, 188, I-10022 Carmagnola, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Boano
authors.affiliation: DiSTeBa - Museo di Biologia Marina "Pietro Parenzan" - Università del Salento, I-73100 Lecce, Italy.
authors.forename: Ferdinando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Boero
authors.affiliation: Università Roma Tre, Dipartimento di Scienze, Viale G. Marconi, 446, I-00146 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Bologna
authors.affiliation: Museo di Storia Naturale, Santa Croce, 1730, I-30135 Venezia, Italy.
authors.forename: Mauro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bon
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Via Dei Tominz, 4, I-34139 Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bressi
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Zoologia, Via U. Aldrovandi, 18, I-00197 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Capula
authors.affiliation: Università di Sassari, Dipartimento di Scienze della Natura e del Territorio, Zoologia, Via F. Muroni, 25, I-07100 Sassari, Italy.
authors.forename: Achille
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Casale
authors.affiliation: Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, ZooPlantLab, Dipartimento di Biotecnologie e Bioscienze, Piazza della Scienza, 2, I-20126 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Casiraghi
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Corso Venezia, 55, I-20121 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chiozzi
authors.affiliation: Museo di geologia e paleontologia, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Via Valperga Caluso, 35, 10125 Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Delfino
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Storia Naturale "G. Doria", Via Brigata Liguria, 9, I-16121 Genova, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuliano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Doria
authors.affiliation: Museo di Storia Naturale del Salento, S.P. Calimera-Borgagne, km 1, I-73021 Calimera, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Durante
authors.affiliation: Science journalist - Swim (Science writer in Italy), Via Jannozzi, 8, I-20097 San Donato Milanese, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.affiliation: Viale Liegi, 48, I-00198 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Spartaco
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gippoliti
authors.affiliation: MUSE Museo delle Scienze, Corso del lavoro e della scienza, 3, I-80123 Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lanzinger
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Lungadige Porta Vittoria, 9, I-37129 Verona, Italy.
authors.forename: Leonardo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Latella
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Cinthia, 21, I-80126 Napoli, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Maio
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Zoologia, Via U. Aldrovandi, 18, I-00197 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Carla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Marangoni
authors.affiliation: Museo di Storia Naturale, Via F. de Pisis, 24, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mazzotti
authors.affiliation: Università di Padova, Dipartimento di Biologia, Via U. Bassi, 58/B, I-35131 Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Minelli
authors.affiliation: Museo Friulano di Storia Naturale, Via Marangoni, 39 - 41, I-33100 Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Muscio
authors.affiliation: Università di Padova, Museo di Zoologia, Via Jappelli, 1/a, I-35121 Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nicolosi
authors.affiliation: Università di Padova, Dipartimento di Biologia, Via U. Bassi, 58/B, I-35131 Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Telmo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pievani
authors.affiliation: Università di Pavia, Museo di Storia Naturale, Piazza Botta, 9, I-27100 Pavia, Italy.
authors.forename: Edoardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Razzetti
authors.affiliation: Università di Catania, Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche ed Ambientali, Via Androne, 81, I-95124 Catania, Italy.
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sabella
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Scienze Naturali "E. Caffi", Piazza Cittadella, 10, I-24129 Bergamo, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Valle
authors.affiliation: Museo Civico di Zoologia, Via U. Aldrovandi, 18, I-00197 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vomero
authors.affiliation: Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zilli
keywords: Biodiversity; Italy; metamuseum; natural history museums