Hi Ken, thank you so much for your post! I wish it was posted while I was in Sanibel, I would have brought the milk conch to the museum FOR SURE!!I will bring the shell on my next trip. I visited the museum last summer and was so glad I did. I found it so informative, escpecially the video presention. And I have to agree with you Pam does a FANTASTIC job with this website :))
Cheers!
Robyn

Katherine, your question is a good one. The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum (aka BMSM or the Sanibel Shell Museum) automatically sends its quarterly newsletter (Shell Museum News) by snail mail to its members. Murex Alice and I are long time members/supporters of the Sanibel Shell Museum. As with many charitable organizations, there are various levels of membership, http://shellmuseum.org/membership.cfm Although we have contributed at various levels during the past 16 + years, whatever level a person and/or family is able to contribute is helpful to the Shell Museum. The cost/benefit of membership may be viewed in many ways. Although this may not be the appropriate forum to discuss financial support of the Sanibel Shell Museum, I believe that this museum promotes education/understanding about mollusks, their shells and many related topics. As such, Murex Alice and I consider the Sanibel Shell Museum a worthwhile endeavor to support with our finances, time, etc.

For anyone not comfortable in becoming a member of the Shell Museum, there is another means to obtain the Shell Museum News. The BSMC website, http://shellmuseum.org/ has a section containing the archived newsletters in PDF format, http://shellmuseum.org/archives.cfm We just received the September issue (#82) of the Shell Museum News. So, it usually takes a month or two for the current issue to be archived and available on the BMSM website. On Pam’s excellent shelling blog, there was a recent (August 7, 2011) discussion (in comments) concerning micro mollusks, http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/2011/08/07/seashells-at-your-fingertips/ . Of note, in the June 2011 issue of Shell Museum News ((#81), http://shellmuseum.org/docs/articles/351/Shellnews_81.pdf and continued in the September 2011 issue (#82), Dr. Leal talks about micro mollusks, especially related to Sanibel Island, southwest Florida and biodiversity.

One or two additional comments may be appropriate. For many of the people who read and post to this blog, seashells and shell collecting are important parts of our lives. For those of us who do not permanently live in southwest Florida, we vicariously enjoy looking at Pam’s beautiful pictures and reading her cleverly worded posts. Some of us may even secretly think that we could be just as clever, but that is unlikely, especially week after week. The BMSM is a valuable resource for all of us. For those who have not yet visited the Sanibel Shell Museum, I encourage you to do so. For those who have visited the museum in the past, I encourage you to consider going there again to see some of the new exhibits or to meet/talk with some of the volunteers, who share our love of seashells and who can probably help with the ID of some of your “unknown” shells. If you do want some help with shell ID, calling ahead of time would probably be helpful. Around noon on Wednesdays is often the best time to find some very knowledgeable volunteers who are always interested in seeing what “unknown” shells other shell collectors have been finding. As for the Milk conch that Robyn has just found, I am sure that Dr. Leal would be pleased to photograph it and include it in the on-line pictorial list of Southwest Florida Shells, http://shellmuseum.org/shells.cfm