[Nhcoll-l] Wooden storage cabinets

[Douglas Yanega]

While the earlier parts of the thread about cotton wool and such did not 
seem to be something that would ever concern me, the following does:

On 10/7/21 6:32 AM, Callomon,Paul wrote:
> Tightly-sealed wood cabinets are nevertheless hazardous for Byne’s 
> because acetic and formic acids are volatile at room temperature, so 
> they will migrate out of the wood and go in search of things to eat 
> regardless of atmospheric conditions. Lower humidity within the 
> cabinets mitigates this problem to some degree, but does not solve it, 
> and some woods such as oak are known to exude a lot of acid. It may be 
> possible to mitigate this with the equivalent of the “sacrificial 
> anode” on a wooden ship (that is, place a tray of hygroscopic alkaline 
> material in the cabinet that is more attractive to the acids than the 
> specimens) but I have not seen this done.

I manage a very large insect collection, and ALL insect collections, 
without exception, use wooden drawers (though maybe not wooden 
*cabinets* any more); my collection has over 5500 wooden drawers, 
ranging in age from 1 to about 70 years. After over 20 years going to 
international meetings for insect collection curators (the Entomological 
Collections Network - ECN), I don't think I have ever heard anyone say 
that keeping insect specimens in wooden drawers was something that - *in 
and of itself* - was probably causing significant damage to them over 
time. If there are acidic volatiles produced by wood and paper, then 
insect collections ARE going to experience significant exposure, and 
there are certain things one gets familiar with in insect collections 
(black exoskeletons turning red/brown after a few decades, pins embedded 
in cork corroding where they contact the cork and getting stuck, etc.) 
that might be related to this, but not fully appreciated as to the cause.

That strikes me as an odd "disconnect", that a major part of the NH 
museum community that very much stands to be affected by this phenomenon 
would be so poorly-informed on the subject compared to other subsets of 
the community. Has any of the literature and research on this ever been 
performed by entomologists, or published in entomological journals, 
where it could get broader attention, and it's just being overlooked, or 
have we genuinely been left out of the proverbial loop? A fairly 
targeted Google search reveals essentially nothing in the entomological 
literature except a short note from 1992 (evidently by a colleague in my 
own department) suggesting that acid outgassing from wood might cause 
corrosion in insect pins.

If I'm not mistaken, then maybe one of you folks who is familiar with 
the risks of VOCs outgassing from wood would be willing and interested 
in contacting the program chairs for the impending annual ECN meeting, 
which is online this year, via https://ecnweb.net/ecn2021/meeting/ - the 
meeting is in only a few weeks (Oct. 25-27), and most of the program is 
already set, but I have the impression that the organizers would do 
their best to find a time for such a potentially important presentation.

Sincerely,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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