[NHCOLL-L:2335] Re: collection organization

[David Furth]

I agree with John.  Phylogenies continually change, but the alphabet does not.  Practicality should prevail over theoretics.
 
***********************************************
David G. Furth, Ph.D.
Collections Manager
Department of Entomology, MRC 165
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
P. O. Box 37012
Washington, D. C. 20013-7012
Phone: 202-357-3146
Fax: 202-786-2894
Email: furth.david at nmnh.si.edu 
Website: http://entomology.si.edu  


>>> "Simmons, John E" <jsimmons at ku.edu> 06/17/04 12:49PM >>>
Judith,
Phylogenetic order?  Cool.  Can you send me a photograph of your storage furniture arranged in a branching sequence?  I want to see this.

All kidding aside, collections arranged in phylogenetic order are never really in phylogenetic order because they are linear (unless you are very Aristotelian about your classification system).  We gave up on the faux-phylogenetic order years ago and now have the collection separated into sections using a phylogenetic unit (Order) but within each order the specimens are arranged the alphabetically by family, genus, and species, with a further arrangement within species by geographic unit.  We do not pretend to arrange the Orders in a phylogenetic order.

--John

-----Original Message-----
From: Judith Price [mailto:JPRICE at mus-nature.ca] 
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 10:40 AM
To: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu 
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:2329] Re: collection organization

For the most part, we use the phylogenetic order for each major collection
unit.  The only real exception is the Parasite collection, which benefited
from beginning in our museum after the advent of computers.  Because there
are really two levels of taxonomy involved in any parasite record (the
'worm' and its host) it is a good collection to store completely
non-phylogenetically.

In this collection there are 5 units: 
1. Reference collection in small jars
2. Reference collection in large jars
3. Reference collection on microscope slides
4. Type collection in small jars (we haven't acquired any types in large
jars yet!)
5. Type collection on microscope slides

Each section has a specific address which is easy (for me) to recognize and
allows for speedy retrieval.  Each catalogue record must include the address
for access, but records can be entered and sorted in any order.

This means the next item in gets the next slot on the shelf, I never have to
rearrange large chunks of collection to make room for new acquisitions or
when whole groups get moved among phyla (and then go back and change all the
address data!)  If I was starting a new collection from scratch of any kind
I would use this system!

In the portions of the collection stored phylogentically we post a listing
at the end of each row of shelving showing its contents.  It certainly helps
when same-level groups are alphabetized!

I think if you are losing a lot of time to changing the data to keep up with
shifts in storage locations, then your colleague may have a point.  But if
you are saving time in retrieval then maybe that is the balancing factor?

Judith

Judith C. Price
Secretary, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections
Please visit us at http://spnhc.org/ 
Assistant Collection Manager, Invertebrates
Canadian Museum of Nature
PO Box 3443, Station D
Ottawa, ON  K1P 6P4
jprice at mus-nature.ca 
tel. 613 566-4263
fax 416 364-4027
 
Please visit us at www.nature.ca 



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