[Nhcoll-l] Numbers on specimens

[Douglas Yanega]

On 8/29/22 9:15 AM, Liath Appleton wrote:
> As most of you know, specimens often have their old numbers written 
> somewhere directly on the surface of the object. In our collections we 
> do not write numbers on the specimens, primarily because the previous 
> curator didn't want to police the handwriting skills of her 
> volunteers. That makes sense, but I think that we really should have 
> the numbers on there somehow. Some people have suggested printing out 
> the numbers and using some type of glue to adhere the numbers to the 
> specimens. I've seen this done before, but I've also seen many of 
> those labels falling off over time. When I managed mollusk 
> collections, writing directly on the shell surface was usually easy to 
> do, but for my current collections that consist primarily of fossils, 
> rocks and minerals, writing on the surface can be tricky. For those of 
> you who do apply numbers to specimens, what are your thoughts on the 
> subject?

Insect collections contain a variety of object types, each dealt with 
differently. Pinned specimens have a numbered label on the same pin. 
Slide-mounted specimens have a label glued to the slide. Vials sometimes 
have two labels, one inside and one outside, taped to it, but usually at 
least an inside label. Objects like galls or nests or twigs have the 
number on the container that houses them, not on the object itself, with 
just one object per container.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82