[Nhcoll-l] barcoding pros and cons

Fri Feb 28 11:30:36 EST 2014

Hi Rick,

We are a new collection, and since we are curate parasites (mostly helminths and ectoparasites), we have lots of small vials with worms and lots of slides. Our colleague Dr. Gordon Jarrell (copied here) can probably elaborate more on this, but he initiated and helped us develop the barcodes for our collection, based on his experience with the tissue collection in Alaska. Frozen tubes in boxes in racks in freezers creates an object tracking nightmare. Our barcoding system is integrated with our database, Arctos, making it that much easier to keep barcodes linked to catalogued specimens.

So we have barcodes in our vials, on the jars containing the vials, on the shelf in the collection, on the row and on the rack - and so on. For our slide collection, we have barcodes on the slides that are scanned into a that has the positions of the slide box and the slide box has a barcode, and the shelf etc....  This has made it VERY easy for us to keep track of slides and vials and also eliminates our need to figure out a way to organize the specimens (by phylum, host, geography etc.) .

Probably our greatest cost was the barcodes. The ones we use for the shelving, jars, and slide boxes are 1D and were not expensive. The ones we have on safe paper (time, alcohol, formalin, glycerin etc) in vials are 2D. The ones for our slides were much more expensive as they had to be mostly resistant at most to xylene, also 2D.  The scanners to read 2D are a one time expense and we have three of them now and purchase when we can. We are also thinking of taking them into the field and barcode samples in the field, eliminating mistakes from hand written labels. All works in progress.

But, we are new, and had some choice in how to set up a brand new collection and had some NSF money - that helped. 

Sara

******************************************************************************
Sara Brant, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
Senior Collection Manager Parasite Division
Museum Southwestern Biology
1 University of New Mexico
MSC03 2020
Department of Biology
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001  USA
Phone: 505-277-8171/277-2179 or 277-3174; FAX:505-277- 0304
sbrant at unm.edu
Alternative e-mail: blarinas at yahoo.com
http://www.msb.unm.edu/parasites/index.html
http://www.schistosomes.net

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Albuquerque NM 87131

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________________________________________
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Bentley, Andrew Charles <abentley at ku.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 09:18
To: Richard Morse; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] barcoding pros and cons

Rick

Most ichthyology and other wet collection do not usually go the barcoding route due to the cost benefit analysis of doing so.  The only benefit of barcoding is that it provides you with an east mechanism for processing large loans, doing inventories or otherwise creating batches of specimens.  In ichthyology collections and the like the cost of barcoding everything far outweighs the benefits given the relatively small number of specimens we loan every year in relation to for instance botany or entomology collections.

Given that we do not have a tradition of barcoding specimens the cost of going back and do so is just too large for me...

Hope that is fodder for a lively discussion...

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
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu

SPNHC President-Elect
http://www.spnhc.org

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-----Original Message-----
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Morse
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 10:07 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] barcoding pros and cons

Hi Folks,
Long time listener, first time post - our institution is debating whether or not to buy into barcoding devices. I am hoping to start a discussion on this board about the pros, cons and relative utility of such a system in relation to natural history collections and beyond. Or you can reply directly to my email!
Your help and knowledge is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!   ---Rick

Richard Morse, Ph.D.
Collections Manager Ichthyology and Decapod Collection New York State Museum
145 Jordan Road
Troy NY 12180
518 283 9005
518 473 8121
rmorse at mail.nysed.gov
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_______________________________________________
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.