Exhibit Review

The face museums present to the public is their exhibitions and displays, but they also keep large collections of various artifacts that function as research depositories. One such research collection is the M.T. James Entomological Collection at Washington State University, which boasts an insect collection of approximately 1.25 million specimens. The collection functions as the State of Washington's official entomological depository and is available to researchers interested in studying its specimens. However, the M.T. James Entomological Collection has no permanent exhibits or displays available to the general public. While the Entomology collection at Washington State University is impressive in its scale, its lack of availability to the public visitors limits its potential to educate the broader population.

The biggest improvement the WSU entomological collection could make is to further develop its accessibility to the public. The collection currently arranges temporary displays during certain times of the year, usually when the university has a lot of visitors; for example, homecoming weekend, graduation, or when perspective students come to visit the campus. But with no room for permanent displays in their own facility, such shows tend to be very short term. Ideally the university should expand the area housing the insect collection to include a small museum open to everybody, but budgetary restraints prevent this from being a reality. Until the university builds such a facility there are several other possibilities to improve the collection's accessibility to the public.

One possibility is to loan a portion of the collection to other institutions for their own temporary displays. The university could lend specimens in the collection to other museums for use in displays and exhibits. In addition to loaning specimens to other museums with biological collections, there are also several other local groups that would appreciate having more hands-on access to the collection for its educational value. The Palouse Discovery Science Center and the school districts within the vicinity of Washington State University are just two examples of organizations that would be interested in borrowing parts of the collection. Other avenues might be colleges and universities within the Pacific Northwest, who might expand on their own research or provide exhibits. Temporarily lending out a small portion of the collection would bring it to students who might not be able to visit the collection at the Washington State University campus in Pullman, Washington; however, putting items on loan could jeopardize the collection if specimens are lost or destroyed in the process.

Tours of the M.T. James Entomological Collection can be conducted in the existing facility and are available to those who are interested in its educational value, but by appointment only. The spatial restraints of the collection's current facilities also make these tours slightly uncomfortable given the cramped and cluttered conditions of the environment. With a lack of space being the collection's biggest drawback, another consideration might be to move the entire collection to a better facility that has more room and where the public without an appointment can view displays of the items. If the insect collection needs a new facility on the WSU campus, there are several possibilities, including building a new space for the collection, moving the collection to a larger area, or combining the M.T. Entomological collection with another biological collection. Each option has it benefits and drawbacks, but the real difficulty is that WSU does not have funding for any expansion or new structure.

Despite a modest amount of space and limited resources, the M.T. James Entomological Collection is one of the largest university insect collections in the United States. As an invaluable resource for young and old, alike, the collection offers information on the significance of insects in the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the world. As the world faces growing environmental challenges, the role insects play in our ecosystem needs to be understood better by everyone. But visitors to the collection will likely find the current area housing the collection to be confining, especially for larger groups. A special exhibit area could dramatically improve the experience of those who come to visit the collection, grounding the experiences of visitors in a more museum-like setting.

Many people find insects disgusting, repulsive, and even terrifying. Many people are afraid of bugs. Some of these fears and misconceptions are simply the result of ignorance, and expanding the public's access to entomological collections and bringing these insects into exhibits will educate the general public about insects, and it might even help relieve the phobias many people have of these valuable creatures.