[NHCOLL-L:5044] Re: how do you store your wet specimens?

[John E Simmons]

Jess,
The traditional (systematic based) arrangement of specimens does consume a
lot of space, and it is difficult to accomodate growth in such systems, so
you have my sympathies as you look for a better system.

I have seen a system of jars-by-size storage that worked well as far as
saving space (at INVEMAR in Santa Marta, Colombia).  However, it does take
longer to find specimens with this system because each time you need a jar
you have to look up a code that tells you where it is.  INVEMAR will be
moving to a new facility in a year or two and they plan to cease using the
system due to how complicated it is to find specimens, and go instead to a
more traditional system.

Another drawback to dense shelving is possible violation of fire code.  As
you probably know, there are no uniform standards for storing fluid
preserved specimens, but most fire codes do limit the amount of alcohol you
can store in a given space, so be sure to check with your local fire marshal
or university fire marshal first.

Before you invest many resources (time or money) in bar coding, you should
consider how much longer bar code readers will be available and will be
serviced (see http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2002/05/52343for
example).  My prediction is that the technology will not be supported
within five or ten more years.  The change will be driven by commercial uses
of bar codes, which are finding RFID tags increasingly efficient--museums do
not have enough market share to keep bar code readers on the market.

The core question is how to store specimens most efficiently while doing
what you can to maximize retrievability (in my opinion, complicated systems
are not efficient).  You can probably still save space with a compromise
between a traditional (systematic) arrangement and a container size
arrangement by calculating which parts off the collection are most often
used and which parts are growing the most; combining specimens in jars (this
works well for herps, not for lot-based fish collections); using
jar-within-a-jar storage; and allocating space within the collection array
based on a combination of container size and nomenclature (generally
speaking, species within a taxonomic unit tend to be about the same size and
hence housed in similar sized containers).

--John

John E. Simmons
Museologica
128 E. Burnside Street
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania 16823-2010
simmons.johne at gmail.com
303-681-5708
www.museologica.com
and
Adjunct Curator of Collections
Earth and Mineral Science Museum & Art Gallery
Penn State University
University Park, Pennsylvania

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Jessica Rosales <rosales at mail.utexas.edu>wrote:

>  Hi all,
>
> We here at the TNHC are exploring options to deal with space issues for our
> fish and herp collections.  One idea is a system that shelves jars according
> to their size, then by catalog number within each size. A downside to this
> method is of course that the collection is no longer browseable.  Another
> idea, that may or not be used in conjunction with the first, is using bar
> codes on each jar to make retrieval easier regardless of the storage method.
>
> I'd like to know who out there stores their wet collections using either of
> these two methods, type of collection(s), the size of your collection(s)
> (lots), how well this system works for you, and how long it has been in
> place.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jess
>
>  Jessica Rosales
> Ichthyology Collection Manager
> Texas Natural History Collections
> Texas Natural Science Center
> The University of Texas at Austin
> 10100 Burnet Road, PRC 176/R4000
> Austin, TX 78758-4445 USA
>
> 512.471.8845 voice
> 512.471.9775 fax
>
> Find out more about the Texas Natural History Collections<http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/tnhc/fish/index.html>
> :
>  [image: Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Austin-TX/Texas-Natural-History-Collections/30600125266>[image:
> Youtube] <http://www.youtube.com/user/TXNaturalScienCenter>
>
>
> On 10/20/2010 11:01 PM, NHCOLL-L Natural History Collections List wrote:
>
> 			    NHCOLL-L Digest 2111
>
> Topics covered in this issue include:
>
>   1) [NHCOLL-L:5012] US Government Policy on Scientific Collections
> 	by WEITZMAN at si.edu
>   2) [NHCOLL-L:5013] Fwd: US Government Policy on Scientific Collections
> 	by CAHawks at aol.com
>
>


--
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20101027/86a7f47b/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 594 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20101027/86a7f47b/attachment.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 258 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20101027/86a7f47b/attachment-0001.png