New Book from the AMS

To the FWGNA group,

Some of you may remember a cute little booklet published by the American Malacological Union (now the American Malacological Society) entitled "How to Study and Collect Shells." It was born as a 1941 annual report of the AMU, and by its fourth edition of 1974 had grown to 107 pages with two (!) illustrations. The original chapter on freshwater snails was composed by Frank Collins Baker.

In 1999 the AMS began the process of completely updating and expanding that work, under the able leadership of Charlie Sturm, a research associate in the Carnegie Museum Section of Mollusks. I'm pleased to report that the work is now published:

"The Mollusks: A Guide to Their Study, Collection, and Preservation"C. Sturm, T. Pearce, and A. Valdes (eds.)
Universal Publishers, Inc., Boca Raton, FL. xii + 445 pp. 101 ill.

An early proof copy of my Chapter 21 on freshwater gastropods has been available from the FWGNA web site since 2003. But there are 31 chapters in total, including chapters on collecting and cleaning shells, archival methods, digital and film imaging, dredging, taxonomic methods and molecular techniques. There are chapters covering all seven extant classes of mollusks (yes, even the Aplacophora and Monoplacophora) from all environments, including the fossils. The chapter on freshwater mussels is by Kevin Cummings & Art Bogan, and the chapter on non-unionoid freshwater bivalves is by Alexi Korniushin. No malacological library will be complete without a copy of this book!

The bargain price is just $35.95, or two for $71.90. The American Malacological Society is a not-for-profit organization. Revenue from the book will help defray the costs of our scientific program, student scholarships and grants. The AMS will earn more if the book is ordered from the publisher than through commercial ventures such as Amazon.com or Barnes&Nobles.com. Thus, I would encourage you to order directly from the publisher:

http://universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1581129300

Direct any questions to Charlie Sturm at doc.fossil@gmail.com

Thank you all for your support of American malacology!

And we'll keep in touch,

Rob