[Nhcoll-l] Rehousing specimens and retaining labels

[Lennart Lennuk]

Hi!

I absolutely agree with Eric to not discard the original labels.
Does anybody know if the labels removed from jar would stay better and longer
in alcohol or is it okey to just hold them dry in envelopes?

Best regards
Lennart Lennuk
Head of collections
Estonian Museum of Natural History
(+372) 6603404, 56569916

Best!
Lennart

From: Nhcoll-l [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Lazo-Wasem, Eric
Sent: Thursday, June 3, 2021 2:08 AM
To: Nicole Seiden <nseiden at fau.edu>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Rehousing specimens and retaining labels

Hi Nicole,

I have run into this issue myself.  What I do is scan the label and scale it down as needed for printing with a thermal paper. The facsimile goes in the jar or vial, so you have the "original" to see to verify data fidelity.  I do this with large field samples filled with many taxa, etc. that need to be split from a bucket and I have only one original label.  Sometimes there is only the writing on the bucket so I snag a photo and copy that for printing.  I then scan and print vial/jar appropriate copies so I know for sure the data are correct.  Otherwise, you have to take at face value the data were entered correctly.  Of course, attaching a label image as suggested by Andy is another smart move, but I would not throw away the original; even thousands of small labels in archive envelopes do not take up that much space.


Eric A. Lazo-Wasem, Senior Collections Manager

Division of Invertebrate Zoology

Peabody Museum of Natural History

Yale University

170 Whitney Avenue

New Haven, CT 06520

________________________________
From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> on behalf of Bentley, Andrew Charles <abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>>
Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 6:44 PM
To: Nicole Seiden <nseiden at fau.edu<mailto:nseiden at fau.edu>>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu> <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Rehousing specimens and retaining labels


Nicki



Why not just digitize them and attach them to the individual records?  I doubt that much if any information would be lost, and you could then discard the labels.  We have done this with old catalog cards and the like that we do not want to keep but can be digitized with no loss of information.  Just make sure that you digitize them at a high enough resolution that individual characters can be read and analyzed.



Andy



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Andy Bentley

Ichthyology Collection Manager

University of Kansas

Biodiversity Institute

Dyche Hall

1345 Jayhawk Boulevard

Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561

USA



Tel: (785) 864-3863

Fax: (785) 864-5335

Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>

http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu%2F&data=04%7C01%7Ceric.lazo-wasem%40yale.edu%7C70cd51300db14bd6e3f808d926180c63%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637582707007049579%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=xACKoMf6Hxtn4pkTyZEL0jUC8AkdhaKubXizHRZLJZs%3D&reserved=0>



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From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> on behalf of Nicole Seiden <nseiden at fau.edu<mailto:nseiden at fau.edu>>
Date: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 12:03 PM
To: "nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>" <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Rehousing specimens and retaining labels



Hello everyone,

We are about to begin a major reorganization project here at Harbor Branch to conserve on space and allow for future growth. One part to this project includes rehousing wet specimens into smaller size-appropriate jars, with our smallest jar being 20mL scintillation vials, then barcoding and organizing the jars by size. I’ve run into a dilemma with this however, and I wanted to ask the community for suggestions.

Specimens housed in 20mL vials are currently stored in larger 8 oz jars so the handwritten collection label and printed label (2”x 3”) are housed with the specimen. By removing the 8 oz jars though, we can save a substantial amount of space. For example – we can house more than 5,500 scintillation jars in a single column of shelves, as opposed to ~900 8 oz jars per column. The problem with the small scintillation jars is that the collection labels are too large to store inside of them. While these jars will be barcoded with catalog numbers and unique location, I’m still uncomfortable with removing the internal specimen labels.

One idea is to house these labels in a near-by folder and after this project is completed, printing off new jar-size appropriate labels, possibly with reduced information. The original handwritten labels will likely have to stay in this folder long-term though.

I’m curious if anyone else has tackled this dilemma, or might have ideas on how they would address it if it were their own collection?

Forever curious,
Nicki





Nicki L. Seiden, M.Sc.

She/Her/Hers

Research Collection Manager

Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute

nseiden at fau.edu<mailto:hmcqueen at fau.edu>
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