A few years ago, a VIP from the Online industry was visiting Albany and asked me to take her to our New York State Museum. She loved natural history and always visited the official museum of each State over the course of her travels around the country.

As we walked through the museum halls, many of the exhibits didn't work, or were broken, and signs were posted apologizing for the condition of the museum due to lack of funds. Her comment later was, "That's your state museum? What a sorry 'state' it was in."

I wasn't sure if she was referring to the museum or New York "State," but I have never again brought a guest to the museum.

The museum halls have not looked that bad since, but the event reminds me of a rotting tree. The surface looks fine today, but the hidden core is disappearing, rotting away from neglect, until it topples over.

Since 1990, funding for the museum has declined 40%. Some of the best professional scientists are leaving, or have left, for greener pastures due to funding cuts, the lack of supporting staff, or positions are vacated and not being filled. Important scientific specimens have disintegrated due to the failure of the State to provide proper environmental controls.

The 163 year old State Museum -- America's oldest public museum -- with collections of natural and cultural history, second to none, is in crisis. You should be outraged.

I literally grew up in the old New York State Museum, when it was housed in the Education Building on Capital Hill. I learned more about the natural wonders of this State from the vast exhibits it housed than I ever did in all my years in secondary school. The impressions felt were instrumental in my continued love for science and wanting to work in the field.

Over the last 30 years I have had the privilege to work with (and learn from) many great scientists and researchers in the Science Service: Stanley Smith, Edgar Reilly, John Haines, Bob Dineen, Paul Connors, Tim McCabe, and Dick Mitchell, to name a few. I learned about the rich Native American prehistory from William Ritchie, and learned how to do archeology in the ground from Robert Funk, the last "State Archeologist." Today, the Learning Factory is working on creating educational geology kits for local schools and we are being guided by Ed Landing, Mike Hawkins, and Linda VanAller Hernick from the geological survey and paleontology section of the museum.

When I was a young college student, the late Stanley Smith, then State Botanist, would often go out to the Pine Bush with me as I tried to learn the importance of its flora. Stanley could see a wildflower a mile away and give you its complete history before you reached it. I had a difficult time keeping up with Stanley as we hopped from one location to another. Did I mention that Stanley was crippled? It never stopped him.

The staff of the museum has helped thousands of young people, adults, and fellow scientists throughout the years. Of course the public at large never learns of this until it is often too late.

The State Museum budget is one third the budget of the Albany City High School. Let me emphasize that point. This is a museum that deals with the collection, preservation, and interpretation of the vast richness of the entire State's natural and cultural history - some 5 MILLION objects. Since 1998, the museum has lost 3 of the remaining 18 scientists, a 16% drop, and may be reduced to about 10 after retirement and non hiring over the next few years -- a loss of 33%. There are engineering consultants that have bigger science staffs.

This is a museum that was mandated in the 19th century to protect New York State's natural and cultural heritage and disseminate information to the public. We now need a mandate to protect the museum from bureaucratic ignorance.

For years museum scientists tried to obtain proper environmental control of the vast paleontological and rock collections. Without proper controls (humidity and temperature), rocks break down and fossils disintegrate.

In a few short years after leaving the old museum to the new offices in the Cultural Education building, important fossil collections have completely disintegrated including those of the country's first woman State Paleontologist, Winifred Goldring. It took 14 years before the state could find any money to make improvements. By the time the $250,000 worth of improvements occurred, about 3 million dollars of fossil material were lost forever. I bet there isn't a State legislator or staff that doesn't have a climate controlled office!

Is it a money problem? The State had no problem finding two million dollars to give to the private Albany Institute of History and Art in 1998. It had no problem agreeing to fund 85 million to build a new Buffalo Bills football stadium.

The museum averages 700,000 to one million visitors each year, is open 362 days a year, and is FREE to the public.

It's a matter of priorities, folks. Legislators don't get photo-ops when they fully fund a science service that most people don't know exist. Fund a football stadium and the world loves you. This is a disgrace!

The New York State Museum was founded in 1836 and is older than the Smithsonian, our nation's museum, by a decade. Our museum was a model for this and other museums around the country. Much of America's early science started here with the biological survey in 1836, the anthropological survey in 1843, and the geological survey in 1836, which to this day is the oldest continuously operating geological survey in North America. The 164 years of research that has emanated from this museum is world renown and respected - except by New York State Bureaucrats.

The research from this museum has dealt with economics as well. It helped make New York the 'Empire State' with research in oil and gas mining, economic uses of minerals and rocks, and research in agriculture and health issues such as on pests like black flies and mosquitoes. We learned that a rich and diverse people lived in our State before it was "Euopeanized." It was the bird eggs in the state museum collection that helped Rachel Carson prove that DDT was indeed the progenitor of "Silent Spring." Justice cannot be given in one column on the many years of scientific contributions from this museum.

You must let your legislators know you want the State Museum to be fully funded and demand that it be brought up to the high standards and purpose that was mandated by our forefathers.

It is one thing to house these vast scientific collections but you need scientists to interpret and explain their significance.

Our State treasures can not tell their rich stories by themselves.