[Nhcoll-l] moving an herbarium collection

[Bryant, James]

The classic approach, Alan, is to make the specimens themselves as stable as possible in the cabinets where they are already  stored. This can involve shifting specimens onto partially-filled shelves so none of them will tend to rise or fall in their spaces, or adding a soft packing on top of any folders on a partially-filled shelf to prevent movement. For my part, and I find single-width herbarium cabinets to be pretty easy to move with a typical hand truck, so as long as the cabinets are not tilted any more than absolutely necessary, ensuring that the cabinets are not subject to sudden jolts or binding, or high levels of humidity or any moisture. As with any collections move, speed is not always a good thing.

James M. Bryant
Curator of Natural History
Museum Department, City of Riverside
3580 Mission Inn Avenue
Riverside, CA 92501
(951) 826-5273
(951) 369-4970 FAX
jbryant at riversideca.gov

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From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Alan Harvey
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 8:00 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] moving an herbarium collection

Greetings (and apologies for cross-posting),

Can anyone provide any insights as to how best to move an herbarium collection? Our Biology department is slated to move into a new building on the opposite side of campus this summer. This move includes our 80-cabinet herbarium collection, which will be moving from the hallways of the Math-Physics Building to an excellent dedicated space in the new building. As exciting as this is, I confess to being a bit intimidated by the process of moving this material.

Having the university's moving gang rough-house this fragile material is of course out of the question. The initial thought was to consolidate the specimens to free up a half dozen or so empty cabinets, move them over, then pack up and move enough specimens to fill those cabinets, and repeat this until everything's moved. Clearly a long, slow process! Recently our chair has suggested that we might be able to hire a company to help; at present I don't know anything about this company re: their experience with moving collections (if any such company exists!).

Although there are, as always, time and money issues, the most important issue is making sure we don't end up with a crumbled mess in the new digs!

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Cheers,

Alan

-- 
Alan Harvey
Professor of Biology and Curator of the Herbarium
President, Georgia Entomological Society
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA 30460-8042
(912) 478-5784
fax (912) 478-0845
http://www.bio.georgiasouthern.edu/bio-home/harvey/index.html