[Nhcoll-l] Rehousing specimens and retaining labels

[Dirk Neumann]

Hi Nicki,

please allow another observation on your interesting post: reorganising 
the collection into smaller jars increases the monitoring need and staff 
time required for the monitoring. Jars below 75 ml are more vulnerable 
to evaporation loss, and even though they may not dry up entirely, the 
preservation fluid might loose its preservation strength fast and the 
concentration within the 20 ml jars might drop to 50% EtOH or lower rapidly.

To my knowledge, even though scintillation jars are handy and small, 
they are not specifically designed for long term storage, and the weak 
point often is the liner inside caps, or the plastic of the lids itself. 
So might be worth developing a good monitoring regime once you moved the 
collection.

With best wishes
Dirk



Am 02.06.2021 um 19:03 schrieb Nicole Seiden:
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> We are about to begin a major reorganization project here at Harbor 
> Branch to conserve on space and allow for future growth. One part to 
> this project includes rehousing wet specimens into smaller 
> size-appropriate jars, with our smallest jar being 20mL scintillation 
> vials, then barcoding and organizing the jars by size. I’ve run into a 
> dilemma with this however, and I wanted to ask the community for 
> suggestions.
>
> Specimens housed in 20mL vials are currently stored in larger 8 oz 
> jars so the handwritten collection label and printed label (2”x 3”) 
> are housed with the specimen. By removing the 8 oz jars though, we can 
> save a substantial amount of space. For example – we can house more 
> than 5,500 scintillation jars in a single column of shelves, as 
> opposed to ~900 8 oz jars per column. The problem with the small 
> scintillation jars is that the collection labels are too large to 
> store inside of them. While these jars will be barcoded with catalog 
> numbers and unique location, I’m still uncomfortable with removing the 
> internal specimen labels.
>
> One idea is to house these labels in a near-by folder and after this 
> project is completed, printing off new jar-size appropriate labels, 
> possibly with reduced information. The original handwritten labels 
> will likely have to stay in this folder long-term though.
>
> I’m curious if anyone else has tackled this dilemma, or might have 
> ideas on how they would address it if it were their own collection?
>
> Forever curious,
> Nicki
>
>
>
> *Nicki L. Seiden, M.Sc.*
>
> She/Her/Hers
>
> /Research Collection Manager/
>
> Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute
>
> nseiden at fau.edu <mailto:hmcqueen at fau.edu>
>
>
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-- 


Dirk Neumann

Tel: 089 / 8107-111
Fax: 089 / 8107-300
neumann(a)snsb.de

Postanschrift:

Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns
Zoologische Staatssammlung München
Dirk Neumann, Sektion Ichthyologie / DNA-Storage
Münchhausenstr. 21
81247 München

Besuchen Sie unsere Sammlung:
http://www.zsm.mwn.de/sektion/ichthyologie-home/

---------

Dirk Neumann

Tel: +49-89-8107-111
Fax: +49-89-8107-300
neumann(a)snsb.de

postal address:

Bavarian Natural History Collections
The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
Dirk Neumann, Section Ichthyology / DNA-Storage
Muenchhausenstr. 21
81247 Munich (Germany)

Visit our section at:
http://www.zsm.mwn.de/sektion/ichthyologie-home/

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