The founding example of the idea of Boundary Objects.
A research museum, founded in 1908, that was to study the process of evolution by observing how species changed as its environment changed. California was a good place for that, as its environment was changing rapidly.
To do that, the museum had to catch a whole bunch specimens of various species and preserve them so they can be compared to specimens collected years later. Alpine Chipmunk
The people who trap the chipmunks (the "collectors") are not the same people who work in the museum doing science (the "scientists"). They come from different Social Worlds.
These people coordinate their work around the same *boundary object*, the specimen.
It *means* something different to the different people. To the **scientist**, the specimen is mainly data. Our authors quote a biologist as saying “Without a label, a specimen is just dead meat”.
But to the **collector**, the specimen is *mainly* that dead meat, and it represents a bit of California’s natural heritage that’s being preserved for the benefit of later generations. It’s also the end product of a whole ritual or hobby: going camping, chatting up locals to find where animals are, sneaking up on those animals and getting them to stay still long enough to be collected. Data like where the animal was found isn’t *central* to collectors; it’s more like a chore they do to make the scientists happy.
How were they persuaded to do that chore? That was the problem for Joseph Grinnell, the first director of the museum. The Specimen as Boundary Object
Using the State of California as a Boundary Object was necessary for funding.
In a very real way, the museum itself was a boundary object. Museum as Boundary Object