[NHCOLL-L:4077] open shelves in collection

[Mariko Kageyama]

Hello,

The fire and life safety staff on our university campus recently inspected our fluid-preserved zoological (both vertebrate and invertebrate) collection facility. They looked at the open shelving in particular, and said that the fire code requires that our current shelves be provided a lip or guard to prevent containers from being displaced. According to their advice, the lip may be made of hard plastic, sheet metal or wood strips, rope, etc. as long as the lip will prevent specimen glass containers from falling without potentially breaking the containers or make it difficult to remove or place containers on the shelves. They recommended a simple solution to this matter might be to attach a metal strip to the front edge of each shelf with permanent and strong adhesive or bolts. If you have any experience or suggestions in modifying the existing open shelf storage system for wet collections to comply with the local and campus fire code, we would appreciate
 your advice. Especially we would like to know the pros and cons of different solutions and materials being used to meet such purposes.

Thanks,

Mariko



Mariko Kageyama
Zoology Collections Manager
University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
265 UCB
Boulder, Colorado 80309-0265
303-492-0160



      
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