Public asked to help OSU buy dinosaur
By any standard, Orton Hall and the geological museum inside are ancient places.
Opened in 1893, the building is among the oldest on Ohio State University’s campus. Gargoyles modeled after prehistoric animals adorn its exterior. And the museum houses a 2.5 billionyear-old cyanobacteria colony and meteorites dating back 4.5 billion years to the solar system’s origin.
Yet, the Orton Geological Museum’s biggest fans are its youngest visitors.
“Nothing gets kids excited
like dinosaurs,” said curator Dale Gnidovec, who estimates that thousands of school children come through each year to hear lectures on the ice age and prehistoric teeth, jaws and claws. “In the profession, we have a saying that every third-grader is a paleontologist.”
But as with other museums on campus and nationwide, a squeeze on federal funding has forced natural history collections to reconsider funding strategies.
The Orton museum makes a little money by selling plush dinosaurs, sparkling minerals and T-rex grabbers, but that’s not enough to grow the collection and update the museum. That’s why the staff is following a growing trend of crowd-sourcing and is turning directly to the public for support.
The museum has set a goal of raising $80,000 in March to add a new dinosaur skeleton to its collection.
“We need the money; we just don’t know where it’s coming from,” said Bill Ausich, the museum’s director.
Ausich said he hopes the drive will springboard a revamping of the museum, which has not undergone a major upgrade in decades. As a start, any funds over the target goal will be used to update displays, he said.
“Can you imagine how much has changed since 1980? We need a face-lift,” Ausich said. “We’re a little ambitious. We thought this would be a way to kick-start a renovation of the museum.”
Gnidovec said asking the public for support might encourage them to visit the museum’s exhibits, which feature 54,000 specimens, including a 7-foot-tall giant sloth skeleton.
By next year, Gnidovec expects the collection also will feature a cast skeleton of in mid-gallop. He said the work would be done at Research Casting International near Toronto, Ontario.
Remains of the bus-size beast were first found in Antarctica in 1991 by retired OSU geology professor David Elliot. The dinosaur, which was named after its discoverer, is the most complete dinosaur known from that continent.
“We’re going to get it some way or another,” Gnidovec said.
While much of higher education is fixated on technology and cutting edge research, Gnidovec stresses the importance of natural history collections such as the one inside Orton Hall. Researchers depend on these collections for historic data and professors across disciplines bring classes there as a teaching tool.
And, most important to Gnidovec, these museums spark the curiosity and wonder of school-age children.
In 2012, when an inebriated OSU student broke into the collection and caused $5,000 in damage, a 10-year-old donated her life savings — about $34 — to the museum, Gnidovec said.
“It doesn’t matter if you were born in 1960 or 2010, a dinosaur is exciting to a kid,” Ausich said. “If you’ve ever seen a 6-year-old girl run ahead of her parents up the steps of Orton Hall, you know why this museum is here.”