by Russell D. “Tim” White, Yale Peabody Museum (Retired)
At the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) in Scotland, the Society awarded the Vendor Appreciation Award to University Products, Inc. (UPI) from Holyoke, Massachusetts. For more than 30 years UPI has had a steady and influential place in the development of SPNHC.
In the late 1980’s, Christine Allen, a product manager with UPI began attending SPNHC meetings. She listened to members and assessed the needs of the natural science community and brought UPI’s expertise in paper products to the attention of the membership. One of her first impacts was when Christine developed a UPI catalog for natural science collections. She included many of the well-known UPI paper-based products but expanded their holdings to include discipline-specific products as well. Byron Weston paper, used for printing for fluid collections, was a paper product that was unique to natural science collections, and UPI took the risk of purchasing Byron Weston paper in bulk and making it available to our community when other suppliers were dropping this product. Another addition to their product line was acid-free trays or boxes for storing specimens and artifacts. Not long after this, a Natural History catalog with unique products was born.
After Christine moved on to other opportunities, John Dunphy became the product manager at UPI and the individual who SPNHC members interacted with on needs and product development. John has continued to carry the torch, and expanded UPI’s involvement in SPNHC in many ways. John was part of
an ad-hoc group that advised on logos and name recognition. He was thoughtful, patient and offered
excellent advice on marketing and branding. Through John’s leadership, UPI (along with Gaylord and
Hollinger-MetalEdge) established the Christine Allen Travel Grant in 2014 for emerging professionals
interested in conservation to attend our meetings.
One of the biggest challenges SPNHC has had, and this is also true of many academic societies, was
marketing and fulfilling book orders. UPI came forward with a plan to hold our inventory, promote those
books, and distribute them for a modest fee. UPI has been a strong financial supporter of SPNHC annual
meetings since 2004, when we established a sponsorship plan at the AMNH meeting, and they have
continued to be a major sponsor. When SPNHC started advertising in the newsletter, UPI was
one of the first to sign on and support this initiative.
In so many ways, UPI has been a supporter of SPNHC. They have taken the risk of establishing product
lines to meet our communities’ needs, brought products from allied fields such as libraries and archives
to our members’ attentions, financially supported our mission, and truly have been a partner in the
establishment of SPNHC as a leading force in natural history collections care and management. Please
congratulate John Dunphy and UPI as the 2022 recipient of the Vendor Appreciation Award.