[NHCOLL-L:2046] RE: Moving Collections

[Paul Callomon]

Dear Robin,

I am currently supervising the rehousing of the Recent mollusk collection here at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. We had to budget this very carefully for an NSF grant proposal, and came across lots of little wrinkles that might not be immediately obvious. I am currently writing this up as a paper for the journal of the SPNHC, but among the main points were:

Costs
- cost of new cabinets
- cost of new specimen containers (paper trays and glass vials)
- cost of removal and disposal of old cabinets (important and easy to overlook; we ended up finding someone who'd take them, but this can be difficult if the old cabinets are unattractive. If the old ones have lead-based paint, mercury-based preservatives or other chemical nasties in or on them, disposing of them legally can be a real headache)
- labor for both physically replacing the cabinets (and removing the old ones) and rehousing the specimens. You always need more people than you think.

Other considerations
- a floor-loading survey to confirm that the floors in your new area are able to bear the weight of the collection
- an HVAC survey to assess heating and air-conditioning in the new area (annual relative humidity readings are very important - if you move the collection into a building that is substantially more or less humid than where it is now, you might hit all kinds of problems in the long term)

Design and test every process yourself - if you are going to be moving cabinets from one building to another, for example, physically attempt this with a real cabinet as far in advance of moving day as you can. Even if there are no problems with the actual physical transfer (narrow doorways; tight turns; low headrooms; protruding pipes and/or ducts; wired security doors that cannot be propped; steep ramps and/or steps etc.), you will find out how long it takes to do one cabinet. You can then multiply this by the number you have. This will give you a rough figure (add about 50% for the various manifestations of Sod's Law) for the whole operation and hopefully allow you to plan your time so that you don't have cabinets standing in the rainy parking lot when the doors close and your labor goes home...
You also need to provide yourself with sufficient rolling stock (carts, dollies etc) of adequate size for the number of units to be moved and the number of people who will be doing it, and to provide your people with gloves, aprons and steel-toed shoes as necessary.

Please feel free to contact me with any specific questions you have.

Regards,

PC. 


Paul Callomon
Collections Manager
Malacology, Invertebrate Paleontology and General Invertebrates
Department of Malacology
Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
Tel 215-405-5096
Fax 215-299-1170
Secretary, American Malacological Society
On the web at http://erato.acnatsci.org/ams/


>>> "Panza, Robin" <PanzaR at CarnegieMuseums.Org> 08/18/03 09:50AM >>>
Please reply ON list.  There are others of us who are in similar states.
Robin K Panza 
Section of Birds, Carnegie Museum of Natural History 
4400 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh  PA  15213  USA 
phone:  412-622-3255;     fax:  412-622-8837 
panzar at carnegiemuseums.org 

-----Original Message-----

As Collections Manager of a Natural History museum, I have been tasked with
developing a budget for the cleaning, packing and moving of our entire
collections into a new collections storage area in the same building.  The
collection consists of the following:
 
If anyone has had experience moving such a  collection and is willing to
impart information and advice, please reply off list at
collections at valivingmuseum.org <mailto:collections at valivingmuseum.org>