[Nhcoll-l] [EXT]Re: specimen vault vs vaults

Tue Apr 20 17:57:34 EDT 2021

Tonya,

At the Natural Heritage Campus of the Canadian Museum of Nature, there are a number of strategic separations between collections that were recommended (or imposed by law) by conservators and other specialists.

As you mentioned, pest management would suggest that collections that are susceptible to similar pest attacks should be kept apart so that if one gets an outbreak, the other(s) is(are) not so close that the pests can quickly spread to it(them). For that reason, we kept our Botany Collection far from our Insect and Bird/Mammal collections. While the Insect and Bird/Mammal collection share the same environmental conditions (and same system), they are in separate rooms, with limited risks of pest spreading between these two rooms (all adjacent walls are sealed all around, with no direct door passage).

The second important reason for creating separate rooms instead of a large shared space with separate compactor sets is fire. The larger the room, the larger the risk of a fire spreading to all the collections in that room. While collections kept in modern, sealed cabinets may not be the source of a spreading fire, all the material and furniture not stored in cabinets (including documentation)  can serve to facilitate the spreading of fire. Even with an excellent fire suppression system, the damage from smoke or water can be significant and the more collections sharing that space, the greater the risk of damaging each of them.

For fluid-preserved collections, the response from our local fire department was very simple (and logical) when we designed the building: they would not enter a large space where alcohol is stored in a large number of containers. In other words, if fire was to start in a large room with lots of alcohol, they would not risk their lives; they would let it burn and let the fire suppression system try to deal with it…
For that reason, they recommended we limit the size of each room to house a maximum of 20K litres of ethanol (with two exception for the barrel room and extra-large tank room). Of course each room is adjacent to one another, sharing the same environmental conditions and system, but with walls and doors rated to withhold a fire for 2 hours.

We have been in our building for 24 years and these approaches have served us well. No regrets.

I hope that helps.

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc Gagnon, Ph.D.
Curator, Invertebrate Collections / Chief Scientist
Conservateur, Collection des invertébrés / Expert scientifique en chef
Canadian Museum of Nature / Musée canadien de la nature
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From: Nhcoll-l [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Bentley, Andrew Charles
Sent: April 20, 2021 4:59 PM
To: Haff, Tonya (NCMI, Crace) <Tonya.Haff at csiro.au>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [EXT]Re: [Nhcoll-l] specimen vault vs vaults

Tonya

I think like collections that require the same environmental conditions could just as easily be stored in the same room as long as there is separation of the two collections to allow for proper management of the collection.  We have birds, mammals and entomology stored in the same room in our storage building but the collections are physically separated on compactor carriages to ensure adequate collection management by the individual collection managers and provide some level of autonomy for each collection in the way the specimens are shelved and managed.  This would not necessarily need to be true for multiple collections managed by the same person or people.  The same is true of our wet collections where ichthyology, herpetology, mammalogy, ornithology, invertebrate zoology and entomology are all stored within the same wet storage facility.  Granted in this case there is floor separation for most collection with each collection on its own floor except for one floor which is a mix of collections – but all within their own compactor carriage runs.

I think it makes more sense to separate collections by type (wet, dry, paleo, etc.) rather than discipline for storage.

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<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>

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From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> on behalf of "Haff, Tonya (NCMI, Crace)" <Tonya.Haff at csiro.au<mailto:Tonya.Haff at csiro.au>>
Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 3:07 PM
To: "nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>" <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] specimen vault vs vaults

Hello all,

I am wondering if any of you have opinions on the utility of separating collections into different vaults/rooms, or of housing them all together in one large space? We are planning a new building, and there have been some questions regarding the utility and point of keeping similar collections (e.g. bird and mammal skins) separated (they are housed in different vaults now). From my perspective, it seems that keeping collection types separate is useful for several reasons, including reducing the risk of pest spread between collections, and ease of workflow for researchers and staff working in different collections. But perhaps there are great advantages (here's one - a bit of extra space from the lack of an internal dividing wall) to housing everything in one large space that I haven't thought of? Have any of you moved to or away from housing different taxa together, and if so what have you found? Advice and opinions very much appreciated!

Cheers,

Tonya

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