Specimen Labels

[Stuart Roberts]

Doug Yanega <dyanega at pop.ucr.edu> wrote in message
news:b401bd92020210044950@[138.23.134.119]...
> >Currently our labels contain : Abreviated latin name, common name (if
there is
> >one), location where captured, county, date of capture and name of
captor.
> >
> >Even when printed in 4 point type this does create a large label
particularly
> >when attached to a 'micro' moth. When viewing a series this can be
distracting;
> >the label is often larger than the specimen.
> >
> >Are you a minimalist or do you believe that all possible information
should be
> >shown?  What are the chances of a 'universal label' being adopted?
>
> There *is* pretty much a standard for museum labels, but private
collectors
> do all sorts of things, including labels like you describe, with temporary
> data (ID and "common name") on the same label with permanent data
> (locality, date).
>
> Here's a label from our museum;
>
> USA: CA: S. Brdo. Co.
> Zzyzx Rd., 1 mi SE Hwy 15
> on Asclepias erosa, 340m
> 35°11'N 116°07'W
> 30-v-1999 D. Yanega
>
> This in 4 point Times (a compact, serif font). 5 lines is maximum label
> width (most only require four, when there is no host plant data). Even if
> this is bigger than the insect, it is STILL in keeping with the minimum
> desirable distance between specimens. Any other info goes on a separate
> label or labels. We try to get lat/long to seconds using a GPS whenever
> possible, or reading it off a detailed map after the fact. In principle,
> you could give ONLY a GPS reading and still enable someone to locate the
> exact spot where the specimen was collected, but it's still desirable to
> list country, state, county, and a specific place (with elevation if it's
> known). Always better to use metric (in the above case, it was exactly 1
> mile, so that was simpler), and use roman numerals for the month,

I strongly agree with this last point. In UK when abbreviating the date we
always put dd/mm/yyyy and not mm/dd/yyyy. Month in Roman numerals is a big
help.

or
> abbreviations, and give the full year. You want people in other countries
> to be able to make sense of the data, and something like 11-9-99 is
> completely ambiguous, even to what century. Yes, lots of museums have
> specimens from the late 1800's and early 1900's. Of all the data on the
> label, the collector's name is the least important thing, unless there's
> some particular historical value, or data that SHOULD have been on the
> labels that was not included (so someone can come and beat you over the
> head to get the data buried in your field notes). Nothing worse than
> specimens with someone's secret codes on the labels and no idea where the
> book is that decodes them.
>
> Peace... Doug Yanega

As usual, very difficult not to agree with Doug. Determination labels should
be separate from locality data and I always use a 5 line det. label:

Sex symbol GENUS name
specific epithet
authority
det:
name of determiner + year of determination.

I always print using a 4 pt sans serif font on 135gsm light card.

Never use a  coded cross reference to notebooks. Specimens and notebooks are
easily separated from one another, in fact they are almost invariably and
inevitably detached sooner or later.

Mutiple labelling is easiest if long "continental" pins are being used. The
archaic short "British" pins are a nightmare. (But I'm a hymenopterist, and
I have no experience of dealing with leps. so what do I know....?)

Stuart Roberts

Stuart Roberts