John E. Simmons (B.S. in Systematics & Ecology, an M.A. in Historical Administration and Museum Studies) consults, teaches, and does field work in the US, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Simmons began his professional career as a zoo keeper, then worked as collections manager at the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of the University of Kansas, where he also served as Director of the Museum Studies Program until 2007. Simmons received the Superior Voluntary Service Award from the American Association of Museums in 2001, the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Graduate Students from the University of Kansas in 2005, the Kansas City Area Archivists Award for Excellence in 2006,and the Carolyn L. Rose Award for Outstanding Commitment to Natural History Collections and Management from the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections in 2011. His publications include three books, "Herpetological Collecting and Collections Management" (2002), "Cuidado, Manejo y Conservación de las Colecciones Biológicas" (2005, with Yaneth Muñoz-Saba), and "Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies" (2006). His recent papers include "The theoretical bases of collections management" (2003), "Museum studies programs in North America" (2006), "Presence of elemental mercury in fluid preserved specimens" (2007), "When Father Chimborazo took the frogs away" (2009), and "Observation and distillation--preservation, depiction, and the perception of nature" (with Julianne Snider). Simmons currently is president of Museologica (a museum consulting company based in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania), and serves as a Lecturer in Art at Juniata College; Instructor in Museum Studies at Kent State University; Profesor Invitado at the National University in Bogota, Colombia, teaches for the Northern States Conservation Center, and is Adjunct Curator of Collections at the Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery at Penn State University.

Collections care is a core responsibility for all museums that own, care for, or use collections. The foundation stone for good collections care is a good collections management policy. Things Great and Small is the first to comprehensively address how to write such a policy for any type of museum. Drawing on his extensive experience - as director of the University of Kansas museum studies program, collections manager at the university's museum of natural history, and surveyor for AAM's Museum Assessment Program - John Simmons reviews the issues that a collections management policy should address and the pros and cons of choosing one policy option over another.