Since 1980, many changes have occurred in the Paris Museum. The effects of these changes have been both positive and negative. Positive factore that have beneficially affected the care and preservation of the natural history collections include: the decision to reopen the Great Gallery to the public, and as a consequence, to build a new storage building; the recent development of scientific research on biodiversity, systematics, and especially on molecular systematics; the computerization of the collections and associated data; and the decision to create a specific unit in charge of the collections and databanks. Negative factors have included: the competition between molecular biology and biology of organisms; the removal of basic biology from the education programs; the increased intrusions of the governmental directives within the research programs of the museum, as well as the universities; and the decreased financial independence of the Paris Museum. Finally, after ten years of desperate struggle against the governmental authorities, it seems that natural history collections will be recognized as playing a central, irreplacable role, not only in systematics, but also in many applied sciences. Properly conserved and managed, using more modern techniques, the Paris Museum collections will continue to serve for centuries, as they have for the past 357 years.