Roy Plotnick: The things we leave behind (and shouldn’t)

Roy has another post over on Medium.  It’s an insightful post about returning what you’ve borrowed.

The e-mail from the daughter of a long-retired colleague was unexpected. A paleontologist in a different department from mine, he was now in his early eighties and suffering from dementia. His daughter asked if I would be willing to look at boxes of fossils that he had stored at his now sold house. Agreeing, I was further surprised when she dropped off about eight full boxes of specimens. And I was even more shocked, and frankly mortified, when I realized that nearly all of them were museum specimens, most from Eastern Europe, including holotypes. I have accepted the role of caretaker of the specimens and am making arrangements for their eventual return.

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