[NHCOLL-L:2340] Re: (no subject)

[Shirley S Albright]

There are a lot of reasons for having shelf lists; that is, having 
locations as specific as drawer or shelf.   I'm a big proponent of 
having specific locations even for large collections of natural history 
objects for the following reasons:
1.  Retrieving specific objects quickly for audit requests.  We are a 
unit of state government and have had to retrieve specimens on very 
short notice.   Also, having gone through reaccreditation recently, the 
visiting committee requested similar retrieval.
2.  If the person(s) with collection expertise is unavailable (absent 
for field work, illness, etc.), a collection manager can retrieve the 
objects even if they are not familiar with the taxonomy or systematic 
nature of the organization.
3.  Sometimes an object is put on multiple shelves/drawers that are not 
adjacent.   For example, one piece is ungoing preparation while others 
are in storage.
4.  Inventory review.    At the very least you would have an effective 
date for the piece before it went missing.
5.  God forbid you have to move your collections for catastrophic 
reasons or even for a planned move...like we're going through.   It 
saves soooo much time to be able to print off a shelf list on the spot 
for whatever reason is forthcoming.
6.  A history of locations can be helpful, especially if the objects are 
moving from their permanent storage location for research, loan, 
exhibition, conservation or preparation.

That said, we've never had such control over our natural history objects 
until we started data entry.  It seemed the logical place to start, and 
once entered, locations can be altered or changed by batch.

Good luck.   In my experience it's usually the curators who oppose 
having recorded location information because they are so familiar with 
their collections that they can't see a reason for it.   But then again, 
they're usually not the ones pulling objects for loans, returning 
objects to storage or answering administrative inquiries.   Of course, 
there are always exceptions even among the ranks of collection 
management professionals.

Shirley Albright
Assistant Curator, Natural History
New Jersey State Museum    

Mark McNamara wrote:

>We have a multidiscplinary collection consisting of 44,000 catologed
>specimens divided into Herbarium, Malacology, Geology, Paleontology,
>Ornithology, Herpetology, Entomology, Mammalogy, etc.  
>
>We have traditionally recorded the location of the specimens in the
>database down to the drawer or shelf in most cases.  This is both
>wonderful when you are looking for a specific item and tediuos when
>things are disorganized.
>
>I feel that it is essential to know the exact location down to the
>drawer, but a co-worker disagrees.
>
>Should we continue this level of organization or would it be acceptable
>to just know what cabinet specimens are located in?
>
>What is the most common/best practice?  Any thoughts?
>
>
>
>Your Friend,
>
>Mark McNamara
>Natural History Collection Manager
>Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History
>1900 N. Chaparral Street
>Corpus Christi, Texas 78401
>Email: MarkM at CCTexas.com
>Web Page: www.CCMuseum.com
>
>  
>