[NHCOLL-L:5295] RE: Tape on bottles

[Judith Price]

Paul, thanks for the summary of your institution's results. It is most
informative.

 

We also replaced the jar lids in our collections at the Canadian Museum
of Nature, using staff time and qualified volunteers. However since the
collections were at that time still in unsuitable accommodation, we also
added polypropylene tape with acrylic adhesive as an extra measure of
security. We did extensive testing on this alternative, as documented in
the 1996 paper by Steigerwald and Laframboise available in Collection
Forum.

 

Taping could be done under supervision by volunteers not qualified for
full exposure to chemicals. An unexpected side benefit has been the
ability to 'eyeball' collection activity through the use of two colours
of tape over the 15 years it has been in place. All our
alcohol-preserved collections have been taped including General
Invertebrates, Malacology, Crustaceans, Ichthyology, Mammals, Birds,
Reptiles and Amphibians.

 

Anyone concerned about masking problem lids could certain purchase the
clear product available from SpecTape. I know we had some very large
containers from which big, now-stiff specimens could not be safely
removed and opted to tape well those lids for which we could not source
replacements at the time.

 

I'm glad there has been so much input on the value of replacing lids,
and I certainly don't intend to suggest that taping could be a panacea
for all ills. It is one more barrier method we can apply at the
container level to mitigate risks to specimens.

 

Judith

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Callomon
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 1:23 PM
To: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:5292] Tape on bottles

 

Folks,

 

A digest of some off-list correspondence on this topic:

 

My predecessors had our entire Malacology wet collection (25,000 jars)
wrapped in Teflon plumbers' tape. They stretched it tight, and did
several turns around each jar. Comparing fail rates ten years later with
the adjacent (and not tape-wrapped) General Invertebrates wet
collection, there is no evidence that the tape helped in preventing seal
failure or retained vapor once the seal had gone. 

However, totaling up the hours spent doing the wrapping and costing that
out - as well as the opportunity cost - it would have been cheaper to
re-lid the whole collection. Even volunteer labor has to be costed, as
while they are wrapping tape those people are not doing other things.

In addition, the tape made it harder to spot the older steel and
bakelite lids that we would target as priorities for replacement. Extra
time (and thus labor cost) was necessary to lift and examine every jar,
rather than just eyeballing them. I have found steel lids that are
rusted almost through and bakelite ones with cracks clear across them.
Both look spiffy in their clean white tape jackets, though. 

In all the cases I have seen buying and fitting new lids is the most
cost-effective approach, and it ought to be possible to demonstrate that
to your institution by presenting a proper costed labor estimate. 

What was unusual in our case was that we had the opportunity to
bench-test taping against not taping in two large collections within the
same room over a long period - a unique opportunity. Our 2005-6 survey
showed that the taping had effectively done no good, and that the labor
had thus not been put to optimal use. Of course, we learned that the
hard way. 

We too use a wide range of jar sizes, but interestingly I could find new
teflon-lined lids (at www.oberk.com <http://www.oberk.com/> ) for almost
all of them! Unless you're using commercial jam jars, you should be able
to get great lids for whatever you have. 

Finally, there are small grants available for this kind of thing. The
NSF's collection care and upgrade program might be a good place to
start. 

 

 

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

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