[Nhcoll-l] Alcohol bottle trays

[Dietrich, Elizabeth]

Our collections are sometimes put in such trays.  A couple of things to keep in mind-our fire engineers absolutely did not want cardboard trays as they are combustible.  Coroplast(tm) is now in use-but is it really a better material from a fire safety point of view?  If trays are designed as secondary containment (not necessary in our storage location as the facility is designed to provide secondary containment in case of spills) then the trays may fill with fluid-including water from sprinklers-during a fire and increase the weight on the shelves.  Depending on the load capacity of the shelving, this could be an issue.  So if the trays are not required for secondary containment, but just to keep small jars together, consider putting holes in the base of the trays.

Another way to separate jars on a shelf is to use squared off sticks between groups of animals/plants.

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Callomon,Paul
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 9:55 AM
To: NH-COLL listserv (nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu)
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Alcohol bottle trays

Folks,

Does anyone know of a fluid collection in which loose bottles and jars have been placed in long, narrow open-top boxes or trays on open shelving? We are considering doing this, in order to make our collection both safer and easier to maintain. I know many Entomology collections arrange 4- and 6-dram vials in long racks (we do this too), but I haven't seen the same thing done for larger bottles and jars.

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology, Invertebrate Paleontology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
callomon at ansp.org<mailto:callomon at ansp.org> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170

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