[Nhcoll-l] Packing for storage

[Haff, Tonya (NCMI, Crace)]

Hi all,

We are in the unfortunate situation where we are going to have to put much of our collection (terrestrial vertebrates as skins, bones, paleo, eggs and spirits) into medium-term storage (1-2 years) while our new facilities are built. I thought I had my head around what we needed to do to prep for a move (and took the very useful moving museum collections course online with Lori Benson through Museum Study), but storing things is another story.  I have a couple questions I hope some of you may be able to help with:

1). Pest prevention. If we were just going from place A to B and unpacking I would want to freeze everything, but I'm a bit worried about condensation forming on the inside of plastic-wrapped boxes with specimens in them, and then having a damp problem inside a box I don't unpack for a year. I guess fumigation is another option, but this presents another set of problems as well. Any thoughts?

2). How to pack things, particularly skins. Clearly they must be surrounded by archival materials, but will specimens be safest in boxes or in cabinets? And if in cabinets, is it even possible to pack full cabinets to be moved? If we were moving from place A to B I would pack specimens on their trays, which I would place in boxes. But I'm not sure if this is best if they have to then sit around.

3). If any of you have thoughts as to what to definitely not do, or suggestions for the best way to store and care for specimens while they are not in a vault, I would really appreciate that to.

Yeah, this is not the situation we would like to be in, but it is looking like the most likely scenario at this time, sigh.

Anyway, I would really appreciate any words of advice!

Cheers,

Tonya

---------------------------------------------------------
Dr Tonya Haff
Collections Manager
Australian National Wildlife Collection
National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO
Canberra, Australia
Phone: (+61) 02 6242 1566 (office)
(+61) 0419 569 109 (mobile)

I am in Thursdays and Fridays
Please call or text my mobile for a fast reponse Monday - Wednesday

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