[Nhcoll-l] Storage-grade containers

[Bentley, Andrew Charles]

This is exactly why we have been advocating for a specimen management plan that would outline the costs for curation, digitization and long-term care and mandate these costs in grant proposals that include collecting.  This language, first included in the NASEM report, has been included in the House NSF bill that is currently being debated and which will increase the NSF budget 10 fold over the next 5 years (or something like that).

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> on behalf of "Callomon,Paul" <prc44 at drexel.edu>
Date: Monday, June 7, 2021 at 2:05 PM
To: Nicole Seiden <nseiden at fau.edu>, "nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu" <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Storage-grade containers

In our recent discussions of alcohol storage containers, we didn’t touch on the distinction between lab-grade containers and storage-grade ones. In the field and lab, scientists often use containers that are not storage-grade, such as:

- glass vials and jars that have snap-on plastic lids
- glass shell vials with push-in plastic lids
- Eppendorf and other plastic sample tubes with push-on or screw-on lids
- Nalgene and similar flexible plastic bottles

None of these is storage-grade – that is, proven to be durable over longer terms (10 years plus). When consigning samples to the collection, therefore, they must be transferred to storage-grade containers. If you are handed several trays of field samples in plastic tubes for the collection, getting them into individual screw-top glass vials with proper lids and placing them in racks on shelves can cost hundreds of dollars. Attempting to bill scientists for this or persuading them to proactively add storage expenses to their grant budgets can be a lively conversation.

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
prc44 at drexel.edu<mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170



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