Loans from DPI collections

Loan conditions

Following is the list of Biosecurity Collections loan conditions. Abuse of these conditions may attract a financial penalty under the Agricultural Scientific Collections Trust Act 1983 and/or will result in the denial of further loan requests.

Eligibility

All requests for loan material are conditional on the borrower accepting and abiding by all of the loan conditions.
Return of a signed loan form (provided by the Collections). This will include acceptance of conditions and is mandatory prior to loan dispatch.
The Collection Manager or authorised person reserve the right to refuse loan requests in part or full.
Each loan is considered as both personal and institutional in nature, with the borrower and the borrower’s institution being held equally responsible for the care of the loan, its discharge and acceptance of loan conditions. A copy of the loan form should be given by the borrower to the relevant manager at the borrower’s institution.
It is mandatory to inform the Collection Manager or authorised person of any changes to the borrowers contact details during the period of the loan.
Students cannot borrow material unless the student's supervisor agrees in writing with the lending conditions. In addition, the student must be studying at a recognised institution.

Loan period and procedures

Non-type material loans are for a period of six months for herbarium specimens and twelve months for insect and mite specimens.
Type material is loaned for up to six months only. Type material must be returned by traceable courier or registered mail (Air mail).
Application for a loan extension is to be made in writing or by email submission to an authorised person and is granted at the discretion of the Collection Manager or authorised persons. Please quote the loan number during such correspondence.
The loan may be recalled at any time at the discretion of the Collection Manager or authorised person.
Acknowledging the receipt of a loan by email is a mandatory condition for borrowing Biosecurity Collections material.
Borrowers must provide (email) notification of loan return to the Collection Manager or authorised person upon despatch.

Changes to/treatment of specimen

Written permission from the Collection Manager or authorised person must be granted in order to relocate or transfer the loan material to another institution.
No borrowed material shall be on-loaned except with explicit prior written or email permission from the Collection Manager or authorised person.
Prior written permission must be obtained from the Collection Manager or authorised person before any borrowed specimen is subjected to fumigation with persistent chemicals, microwaves, gamma–irradiation or other treatments which may possibly affect the integrity of the specimen itself or health of the Biosecurity Collections staff member subsequently handling the specimen upon return.
Without prior written permission from the Collection Manager or authorised person, no loaned specimen is to be dissected or have its DNA extracted. Requests should include reason for dissection/extraction and proposed method(s). When possible, an aliquot of the extracted DNA is to be returned with the specimen as a dried pellet.
In cases where borrowed specimens are subsequently re-labelled or remounted, all original labels must be retained and returned with the specimens.
Full details of all damage occurring to the specimens are to be recorded in writing and this information must be included with the returned specimens. Broken parts must be kept together.
Photographs taken of the specimen should be provided as high quality digital copies (TIFF or similar) on return of the specimen.

Acknowledgement

Due acknowledgment of this lending institution, using their standard acronyms (ASCU or DAR respectively) in any publications resulting from the use of the loaned material is mandatory. DNA sequences or DNA sequence references (for example GenBank number or similar) derived from this loaned material must also reference (ASCU or DAR respectively) using these standard acronyms. A printed or digital copy of any publication, sequence or sequence reference derived from the loan must be provided upon loan return.

Contact

Loan requests may be made via

Email: biosecurity.collections@trade.nsw.gov.au

Post: Collection Manager, Biosecurity Collections, Orange Agricultural Institute, 1447 Forest Rd, Orange NSW 2800, Australia

BCU and its collections are CITES registered as AU073