[Nhcoll-l] Tracking in-house specimen usage

[John E Simmons]

Sarah,
Tracking in-house use is a pain... When I was herpetology collection
manager at KU, I created two simple forms for this use, a withdrawal form
(for collection use) and a change form.

The withdrawal form was printed on yellow paper and asked for the user's
name, specimen name, and catalog number(s) on the container and the date
(keeping it as simple as possible). The user had to fill out the form
(which took less than a minute) and put it in a jar of the same size as the
one they were removing from the collection (this was both as a place-holder
and to speed up re-shelving). Users had to return all specimen containers
to the lab where either I or an assistant checked the fluid level,
placement of label, and seal before the jar was reshelved. When the
container was re-shelved, the yellow card went to my office where I could
keep them on file and thus do an annual check on in-house use. Of course
there were people who tried to sneak jars out of the collection (usually
curators) so from time to time I would do an office check for such
containers.

The specimen data change form was printed on green paper and asked for the
specimen name, catalog number, user name, and what the change was (these
were typically re-identifications or corrections of locality data). Change
forms were attached to the jar and returned to the lab so I could then
decide (in consultation with the curators) which changes we were to make
and which to ignore.

The weakness in this system is getting everyone to comply. The key to
success was not letting anyone re-shelve specimens except the collection
manager or curatorial assistants (that way container integrity could be
checked and jars were far less likely to be put in the wrong place). Once
this system was initiated, we had far fewer instances of jars leaking in
the collection and being shelved out-of-order.

Examples of both forms can be found in the 3rd edition of Herpetological
Collecting and Collections Management as figure 27 on page 124 (withdrawal
form) and figure 29 on page 130 (specimen data change form). I will attach
PDFs of both.

I have no idea if the system is still in use there or not.

--John

John E. Simmons
Writer and Museum Consultant
Museologica
*and*
Associate Curator of Collections
Earth and Mineral Science Museum & Art Gallery
Penn State University
*and*
Investigador Asociado, Departamento de Ornitologia
Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima


On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 12:05 PM Sarah K. Huber <skhuber at vims.edu> wrote:

> I would be curious how different collections track in-house usage of
> specimens. I have tried many different protocols for doing this in our
> collection, and none have been completely successful. I would also be
> curious, given your protocol, how compliant users are. (We do not have our
> specimens bar-coded, so this is not an option for tracking at this time.)
>
>
>
> I do record when specimens get re-shelved, but without knowing when they
> left the collection, I am unable to determine the amount of time (months,
> years, decades) that they were used. Therefore, my annual reporting
> statistics don’t necessarily reflect actual specimen usage.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sarah
>
>
>
> Sarah K. Huber, Ph.D.
> Curatorial Associate, VIMS Nunnally Ichthyology Collection
> Office 804.684.7104 | Collection 804.684.7285
> skhuber at vims.edu |
> http://www.vims.edu/research/facilities/fishcollection/index.php
> <https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vims.edu%2Fresearch%2Ffacilities%2Ffishcollection%2Findex.php&data=04%7C01%7Cskhuber%40vims.edu%7C1063bb0e1daf4ab0024f08d897b1267f%7C8cbcddd9588d4e3b9c1e2367dbdf1740%7C0%7C0%7C637426134417674979%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=OEa%2F3y6PHz5lBFNRFMSFFSdxbyTq%2BBGC5PculkLg7nc%3D&reserved=0>
> PO Box 1346 | 1370 Greate Rd., Gloucester Pt., VA 23062
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220128/3a3e67d6/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Page 124 fig 27 Specimen withdrawal form.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 63950 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220128/3a3e67d6/attachment-0002.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Page 130 figure 29 Specimen data change form.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 47060 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220128/3a3e67d6/attachment-0003.pdf>